
Class D-J 

Book JL_3_ 



Copyright N 



10 



COPYRIGHT DEPOSIT. 



LAW AND THE 
CROSS 



The Legal Aspects of the Atonement 

Viewed in the Light of the 

Common Sense of Mankind. 



By 
C. F. CREIGHTON, D. D., LL.D. 



% 



Cincinnati : Jennings and Graham. 
New York : Eaton and Mains, 



£ 



*1* 



COPTBIGHT, 1911, By 

Jenninq-s & Gbaham. 



5V 






CU 2951 75 



; 



oJ 



"Dust *mfc % lu*Kfwr." 



Contents 



CHAPTER I. 

INTRODUCTION — The Legal Aspects of the Atonement 
Viewed in the Light of the Common Sense of Man- 
kind—A Study of Fundamental Peinciples Involved 
in Redemption, -------- 13 

CHAPTER II. 

Law — Moeal Government Implied — Moral Order Broken 
— No Remedy, ---------26 

CHAPTER III. 

In a Perfect Government; Perfect in its Constitution 
and Perfect in Administration ; Pardon is Impos- 
sible, per se, --------- 43 

CHAPTER IV. 

Remedial Expedients: Family Government — Repentance 
and Reformation not a Legal Remedy — Inconsistent 
Opponents and Advocates, ------ 52 

CHAPTER V. 

A Dry Subject — Interesting — Inconsistent Opponents 
and Advocates — Romans A Law Book — Indictment — 
Pleas — Verdict, --------62 

CHAPTER VI. 

Paul the Apostle — The Book of Romans a Law Book — 
Pleadings, etc., -------- 74 

CHAPTER VII. 

Romans Concluded — Pardon Made Possible by the Pro- 
pitiation of Christ — A Legal Equivalent of the 
Penalty Provided, --------89 

CHAPTER VIII. 
" For I Speak to Men who Know the Law."— Paul, - - 98 

CHAPTER IX. 

Necessity for an Atonement A Legal Question Requir- 
ing Legal Treatment, ------- 104 

CHAPTER X. 
Love and Law, - 117 

5 



CONTENTS 

CHAPTER XI. 
The Simplicity of the Atonement, 137 

CHAPTER XII. 

Theories of the Atonement — Vicarious — Triumphanto- 
rial, 152 

CHAPTER XIII. 

Theories of the Atonement — The Satisfaction and the 
Rkctoral Theories, _______ 170 

CHAPTER XIV. 

Theories Continued — The Ground of Necessity — The 
Rectoral Theory, -------- 178 

CHAPTER XV. 

The Death of Christ Substitutional— Sin Offerings — 
Greek Particles, Words, and Terms — Heathen and 
Jewish Sacrifices — Sacrifice and Social Freedom — 
New Testament Preaching, 193 

CHAPTER XVI. 

Not "Our Theory"— The Satisfaction Rendered — I. 
Negatively — II. Affirmatively — The Real Mystery 
— The Propitiation Analogous to the Penalty — The 
Blood of Christ the Perpetual Binding Means of 
Reconciliation, -- 210 

CHAPTER XVII. 

Axiomatic Postulates of Reason — An "I Am" Man's 
Place in the Divine Purpose — Reconstruction or De- 
struction — Grandeur and Eternity of the Christian 
Calling, -- 237 

CHAPTER XVIII. 
Deep Things Versus the Children, - . - - - 255 

CHAPTER XIX. 

Justification ey Faith — Aspects of Faith — Atonement is 

Made — Faith Efficient, 261 

CHAPTER XX. 

Recapitulation — The Climactic " Come," - - - -277 

6 



Preface 



Theology as a recreation affords a field as inviting 
and varied as the physical sciences ; and no natu- 
ralist ever took more delight in some chosen de- 
partment than the author in the study of the legal 
aspects of the atonement, 

If this interest can be transferred to any of 
the readers of this book, the task of writing it 
will be amply rewarded. 

The thoughts here presented are the product 
of a study that began when the author was a 
student, fresh from college and from some study 
of the law. 

The science of theology brought its problems. 
Chief among them was "the atonement;" and 
most difficult of all the questions raised was the 
primary question of ' ' necessity. ' ' 

On the reply to that question hangs not only 
the theory adopted, but in logical sequence the 
mental attitude toward all the doctrines of the 
New Testament. A problem of such vital con- 
cern, demanding solution at such a time, can not 

7 



PEEFACE 

be evaded or laid aside as inscrutable. The solu- 
tion will either be fatal to: an evangelical faith 
or furnish it with an inspiration for life. 

The logical harmony found to exist between 
the legal principles involved, and the philosophy 
of the atonement as stated and expounded by the 
greatest of theologians— St. Paul— will afford the 
answer. 

In the case of the writer, a key to this prob- 
lem was discovered in the study of Blackstone, 
The problem of pardons as there explained was 
afterwards confirmed by every legal authority con- 
sulted, and the legal principles involved were 
found to apply to some phases of moral govern- 
ment; notably to: the pardon of sin. Thus the 
study led to the frequent presentation of this 
theme. 

The " Legal Aspects of the Atonement,' ' ad- 
dressed to ministers and lawyers, to students 
and professors, at college and law schools, has 
elicited information, provoked criticism, and sub- 
jected the argument to analysis. 

Frequent and sometimes formal requests have 
been made for its publication, and it is herewith 
presented (though with some diffidence), in the 
hope that it will bring the subject to the atten- 
tion of thinking men anew, and aid thoughtful 

8 



PREFACE 

students in the solution of some of their theo- 
logical problems. 

The proffer of a book on the atonement, by 
a pastor, in this critical age, when theology is 
reduced to an exact science, seems an intrusion; 
the author, apparently knowing so much less than 
other men, presumes to know more than the able 
and scholarly theologians whose works are ac- 
cessible to those interested in the subject. Our 
defense, in part at least, is in the fact that every 
prophet and every preacher has his message. And 
it is part of ours to remove illogical objections 
that stand in the way of a rational assent to the 
truth of the gospel of "Christ and Him crucified. " 

Further, it will be seen that a treatise on the 
atonement in any scientific sense is not attempted, 
and we neither offer a permanent contribution 
to Systematic Theology nor a "new theory of the 
atonement : ' ' but rather some thoughts on the sub- 
ject designed to correct misconceptions and clear 
the approaches to a better understanding both of 
the New Testament truth and the "theories" of 
atonement as found in the standard works and 
advocated by able theologians. The book is not 
exhaustive in any sense, treating chiefly the "ques- 
tion of necessity,' ' from the standpoint, first, of 
New Testament authority, and second, of the legal 

9 



PBEFACE 

and moral principles involved in any true theory 
of the redemptive work of Christ. The applica- 
tion of these principles requires a study of the 
theories of atonement usually taught, and some 
attention is given to them. An adequate theo- 
logical treatment would render the book a text, 
for study or reference only, and give it little in- 
terest to a general reader. We have preferred 
to combine with the argument such a presenta- 
tion of the theories as may be necessary, and yet 
admit excursions into fields that open by the way, 
and thus secure the interest which attaches to 
any readable book, in the hope that it will not 
prove to be a "dry subject." To men who will 
not think, and to whom the atonement has no 
attraction, we commend a book on some "new 
religion," as that belongs to the realm of fiction 
and is therefore popular. An accurate theological 
treatment of the doctrine of the atonement would 
require a history of its development from the early 
centuries and a summary of the views of theo- 
logians at the present time. But in view of the 
fact that words and terms have come to have 
such technical meaning, it would be difficult to 
write a summary that would express the truth 
with precision and the proper emphasis. It would 
require a book; while for our purpose merely an 

10 



PBEFACE 

outline is desired, and one that will present in 
brief the salient features of the most prominent 
theories as they are found in the standards of 
theology. 

For the matter of the book and the argument 
it contains (except as credited) the responsibility 
is not shared by another. The author again dis- 
claims any attempt to introduce a new theory of 
the atonement. If he has added any emphasis to 
its necessity in the minds of any, he will be glad. 
To add nothing new to the discussion of a theme 
would bar its use in print. It has been said that 
"what the, world needs is not new thoughts so 
much as it needs that the old thoughts be re- 
stated" (Mathews, in "Words: Their Use and 
Abuse"). If, therefore, in this, or in his theology, 
the author has trangressed, he will gladly welcome 
any criticism that puts its finger on the place. 
Mere disparagement, however, is as apt to spring 
from the bias of a critic as from the contents 
of a book. In the conclusions reached the only 
authority to which we hope nearest to conform, 
and fear to offend, is the New Testament. Which 
last remark is justified by the statement that 
' ' there have been conspicuous examples of essays 
and even treatises on the atonement, standing in 
no discoverable relation to the New Testament' ' 

11 



PREFACE 

(James Denney, D. D., "The Death of Christ," 
Preface, p. v.). 

C. F. Creighton. 
Buffalo, N. Y. 

Postscript.— If the critic asks an explanation for 
"The Common Sense" found in the title, we 
reply that we expect him to furnish that in read- 
ing the book. But, primarily, it expresses a seri- 
ous purpose to align some things affirmed in the 
book with the common sense of mankind: To 
take for granted what men of intelligence accept 
as reasonable, though proof of it in some cases 
would require a separate volume. Such as the 
assumption that the universe is governed accord- 
ing to law; that God has a moral as well as a 
physical government ; that men are personally ac- 
countable to G-od, etc. The title is not, therefore, 
an apology for some of the strictures incidentally 
volunteered, nor an appeal to common sense ; but 
rather an approval of its findings, utilized in the 
discussion of the subject. It is true that the halo 
of scholastic prestige sometimes covers up fads 
and fancies which are obscure enough to seem 
profound, while plain common sense would subject 
an author to the hazard of being understood : And 
even in that case the title will not prove a mis- 
nomer. ' * Seeing, then, we have this hope, we use 
great plainness of speech." C. F. 0. 



12 



CHAPTEE I 
Introduction. 

THE LEGAL ASPECTS OF THE ATONEMENT VIEWED 
IN THE LIGHT OF THE COMMON SENSE OF MAN- 
KIND. A STUDY OF FUNDAMENTAL PRINCIPLES 
INVOLVED IN REDEMPTION. 

Geeat verities give rise to- great problems. Some 
of these, either from a lack of necessary data 
or our finite limitations, are inscrutable ; others of 
like interest will yield to our thinking. 

But any thing worthy the name of a problem 
requires close thought. The doctrine of the atone- 
ment presents problems of both kinds. "My 
thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are My 
ways your ways, saith the Lord. For as the 
heavens are higher than the earth, so are My 
ways higher than your ways, and My thoughts 
than your thoughts" (Isa. 55:8, 9). Hence we 
need not be surprised if the divine method of 
saving men should be inexplicable to us, unless by 
some inspired authority it should be announced 
and explained. Presuming this, in view of the 
possible nature of that method, it is yet probable 
that it would give rise to problems that would com- 

13 



LAW AND THE CROSS 

mand tlie highest powers of thinking men. Cer- 
tainly it would not commend itself to the under- 
standing and approval of all men; and yet^ if its 
provisions embraced all men, and any part of it 
should require their approval and co-operation, 
it is very probable that questions relating to their 
duty and privilege would be brought within the 
compass of their understanding. 

Happily for us this is true ; and the atonement 
presents every aspect suggested by these prem- 
ises. God has ordained a redemptive method. 
It has been proclaimed. Holy men, divinely in- 
structed, have "made known the mystery of the 
gospel" (Eph. 1:9 and 6:19). On this subject 
there can be but one authority. Sources of in- 
formation and means of instruction may be many ; 
but first and last, the Scriptures of the Old and 
New Testaments must afford the texts and the 
"try square' ' of what the atonement is and what 
it is designed to secure. Unless we accept the 
authority of the Holy Scriptures for our doctrine 
of the atonement we have no problem. 

All our labor in this presentation will assume 
that authority, and hence we are confronted with 
the questions and difficulties growing out of that 
assumption. If ' ' Christ died for our sins accord- 
ing to the Scriptures" — 1 Cor. 15 : 3 — we may pro- 

14 



LAW AND THE CROSS 

ceed logically to construct a theory of the atone- 
ment. But if not, and we reject the New Testa- 
ment authority, a theory of the atonement is log- 
ically irrelevant Questions that otherwise con- 
front us would disappear, and the "problem" 
would he solved by the elimination of its premises. 
It is true that the historic facts would remain 
and an explanation of these might warrant a doc- 
trinal atonement hypothetically ; but the same ob- 
jections would not lie against such doctrine, nor 
could the same authority be pleaded in its de- 
fense, even though it be designated by similar 
terms and phrases. The problem we have chosen 
to discuss consists in meeting difficulties growing 
out of an acceptance of the New Testament as 
unqualified authority on the doctrine of the atone- 
ment. If we succeed it will help to confirm that 
choice, but if not, the fact of the atonement rer 
mains, and the responsibility rests upon higher 
authority than ours; peradventure above our 
capacity to understand it or our caprice in ac- 
cepting or rejecting it. 

The atonement itself is not a subject of such 
mystery that a rational explanation is impossible. 
Nor is it necessarily a difficult problem until we 
come to reconcile the facts and the philosophy of 
the atonement with all the doctrines of a theo^ 

15 



LAW AND THE CROSS 

logical system. A "theory" is not merely a state- 
ment of the facts and their philosophy. It is, 
first, a statement intended to include the facts 
and declare what the atonement is and is not; 
second, the philosophy of the atonement; third, 
the doctrine made to ha,rmonize with a theological 
system. 

This accounts in large measure for the dif- 
ferences between the theories advocated by learned 
and able theologians. True, the divine method 
of redemption is itself "a mystery which hath 
been hid from ages and generations/' but "it is 
now revealed unto us, ' ' and the fact of atonement 
may be reduced to terms easily understood, while 
its philosophy and theological construction may 
and does require perfect consilience in any doc- 
trinal system of which it forms a part. 

The question of necessity, i. e., why was an 
atonement necessary to the pardon of sin, leads 
to the treatment of every phase of redemption, 
but, primarily, an answer to that question suf- 
ficiently clear and abundantly satisfactory does 
not belong to the realm of mystery and is possi- 
ble to the comprehension of the humblest student. 
For instance, St. Paul affirms that ' ' Christ Jesus 
was set forth to be a propitiation to declare His 
righteousness, that G-od might be just and the 

16 



LAW AND THE CROSS 

Justifier" (Rom, 3:24). The reason here given 
is not meomprehensible. An atonement was 
necessary to the pardon of sin that God might 
be just and extend the clemency of pardon to 
sinners : So that his explanation deals with prin- 
ciples that are familiar to us, and a study of this 
Pauline answer does not require that we under- 
stand the philosophy of the atonement any further 
than it is included in the legal terms employed. 

While phases of the divine method rise to the 
unsearchable, an intelligent appreciation of the 
requirements of moral government and the legal 
barriers that forbid the exercise of pardon is all 
that is required to understand the conditions 
which made an atonement of some kind a provi- 
sional necessity. 

All the reasons which render the exercise of 
pardon inexpedient or impossible without some 
recognition of the fact of sin, and which require 
that pardon be extended in harmony with all the 
principles involved in moral government belong 
to the answer: And an answer that will satisfy 
an unbiased thinker is less determined by *'ai 
knowledge of all mystery' ' than by a willingness 
to! credit truth within the reach of one in search 
of it. Certainly there are heights and depths in 
the philosophy of redemption that give range for 
2 17 



LAW AND THE CROSS 

angelic penetration (1 Pet 1:12), and a theory 
of the atonement too easily comprehended may 
well be suspected; but we do well to> distinguish 
between the plain and the mysterious lest we veil 
the whole in confusion and relegate the most use- 
ful and inspiring truths to the realm of neglect 
and deny ourselves the light of an intelligent faith. 

This habit is all too common, and there are not 
wanting those who scoff at a "theory of the 
atonement, n whose lack of study and smattering 
of truth has given them a theory as crude and 
confused as their treatment of the whole sub- 
ject; their reason for the need of an atonement 
being summed up in the statement that it was 
necessary or it would not have been provided. 
Such is not the New Testament answer, and it 
is not convincing to a thinker. (Nor does it com- 
port with the advice of an apostle, to "be always 
ready to give an answer to every man that asketh 
you a reason," etc.) 

The unique character of the gospel of Christ 
presents both qualities of a magnet : It attracts and 
it repels. Commanding our faith and obedience 
on the ground of authority, it is but natural that 
it awakens protest. Not only is the human heart 
disposed to be released from moral obligations, 
but the mind elects toi challenge truth before the 

18 



LAW AND THE CEOSS 

judgment is surrendered to its claims: Hence 
gospel truth is subjected to greater tests and pro- 
vokes keener criticism than either truth, in the 
abstract or truth systematized in scientific form,. 
The historic basis, the facts, the doctrines, and 
the moral precepts of Christianity have provoked 
the most violent protests. It has been said that 
the cross found an enemy in every human heart* 
It has been subjected to the assaults of learning 
and wit and ridicule and depravity from age to 
age. After all, the only way that Christianity 
has ever been hurt has been by means of substi- 
tution. The most destructive method, both yes- 
terday and to-day, and perhaps forever, is one 
that assumes to speak in its name and then sub- 
stitutes something so much better (?) that it is 
really something else. 

When men rebelled against ecclesiasticism and 
demanded for themselves the right to think, their 
quarrel included not only the institutional body, 
but the doctrinal soul of the Church. With an 
open Bible and the almost universal knowledge 
of it that pervades society to-day, we are not 
capable of appreciating the dense ignorance of a 
period which was preceded by a thousand years 
of darkness during which the Bible was proscribed 
and the preaching of the gospel, "instead of being 

19 



LAW AND THE CROSS 

a constant custom, was rare and exceptional dur- 
ing the long period between the sixth and the six- 
teenth centuries' ' (see McClintock & Strong, " An 
Instructive Article on Preaching"). With Chris- 
tianity thus viewed through a distorted medium, 
its doctrines corrupted and caricatured, it was 
not strange that thinking men should become 
skeptics, and in a literary age that followed should 
flood the world with the literature of infidelity. 
Nor is it any more surprising that reformers in 
their construction of theological formula should 
incorporate exaggerated notions of certain attri- 
butes of Deity and the divine decrees and thus 
give occasion to further revolt. 

It would be too much to say that the condi- 
tions of to-day are in any sense parallel with those 
to which we refer; and yet causes deeply rooted as 
some found in the Middle Ages, and tendencies 
as fatal to the truth, can be traced to the closing 
years of the nineteenth century, the effects of 
which may not be measured until the closing years 
of another century. Most men get their knowl- 
edge of Christianity and their impressions of the- 
ology, not from reading the Bible, but from tra- 
dition. They imbibe the spirit of the age in which 
they live. They would spurn the authority of an 
ecclesiastical institution, but bow to the prestige 

20 



LAW AND THE CROSS 

of popular opinion. Thus with the vital doctrines 
of the New Testament, as modified by these sur- 
roundings, and formulated by critics and oppo- 
nents, they come to know evangelical Christianity 
as a caricature. Men hold certain opinions, the 
product of their observation and experience, and 
any doctrine which is evidently at variance with 
their views of truth and reason are at once dis- 
carded as untenable, without so much as the 
trouble of an investigation. 

It takes but little distortion to invalidate a 
truth, and when that truth is part of a system 
which is itself little understood and subjected to 
the world-wide animadversions of opponents, is 
it any wonder that busy men are misinformed and 
led to believe that it has lost its edge and that 
the evangelical system is untenable "in an age 
of progress i?" 

No truth in the New Testament is more liable 
to; these strictures than the atonement; and with 
a theory of the atonement which nobody ever 
taught and no scholar ever believed, always on 
exhibition in current literature and labeled ortho- 
dox, the popular mind is led to think that the 
"faith of the fathers" was a m i xture of mystery 
and absurdity "no longer tenable in a scientific 
age." 

21 



LAW AND THE CROSS 

Nor are these conditions altogether to blame. 
It is really painfiil to hear a preacher say to his 
auditors, "I confess I do not understand the 
atonement. ' ' True, it would be more so if the 
statement was reversed. But in that bald form 
it is a concession to current unbelief; as if per- 
chance the doctrine of the atonement taught in the 
New Testament presented difficulties which to a 
rational mind could not be reconciled to the truth. 
This implied concession is so palpable that it is 
usually followed with some meaningless panegyric 
about the majesty of the cross and the clouds 
and darkness that cover it. 

It puts an advocate of the gospel more in the 
attitude of Nicodemus coming at night and say- 
ing, "How can these things be?" than that of an 
apostle saying, "God forbid that I should glory 
save in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ. ' ' Such 
treatment of the subject is but a contribution to 
the confused state of which we complain, and 
which it is the plain duty of the pulpit to enlighten 
and correct. It is true that popular conceptions 
may contain a residue of value; even a body of 
saving truth may lodge with some error. Some 
minds are so constructed that to them an incon- 
gruity is but a trifle. Their theology is the product 
of their environment, and the sum of the influences 

22 



LAW AND THE CBOSS 

to which they have yielded an assent, whether 
of faith or unbelief. They could believe in the 
divinity of Christ "if he was mistaken.'' They 
could reject a vicarious atonement^ subscribe to 
an orthodox creed, and continue the same devo- 
tion to the Scriptures while "holding moderate 
views" without a suspicion of inconsistency. Dear 
souls, the trouble is organic; it belongs rather to 
the realm of psychology than thiat of systematic 
theology. 

But there is a class of minds in search of the 
truth so constructed that they can not be satisfied 
without knowing just where they are. If such an 
one is a student of theology and he has taken the 
New Testament for his authority he will lodge on 
the first "trifling incongruity" and refuse to go 
further until he can find a logical way through. 
Hence with such the atonement becomes a prob- 
lem, and its solution waits on more light; which 
if it is found will reward the effort with a con- 
clusion that will not only harmonize with all its 
parts, but can be proved by its perfect adjustment 
to every truth revealed in the Word of God : That 
is systematic theology. 

Whether we define the atonement as vicarious 
and render the New Testament terms to con- 
form with the facts, or whether we begin with 

23 



LAW AND THE CROSS 

a conception foreign to the Scriptures, we do not 
escape the necessity of making our theory of 
atonement conform to the theological system, we 
adopt. 

The atonement concept is relative. It is one 
side of a triangle; co-ordinating with sin and 
salvation as the other two sides. 

The figure may be enlarged to any number 
of sides, but the relativity of the atonement con- 
cept remains the same, and when the whole figure 
is perfected it will either correspond to that of 
the New Testament or it will differ throughout. 
(That is, provided it is logical.) The theologian 
can not cull out the atonement, and in definition 
divest it of every feature of propitiation and 
retain at the same time a vestige of his ortho- 
doxy. Unless his theological ground is 'Liberal- 
istic," which in perfect logical consistency car- 
ries with it all the evangelical doctrines of the 
New Testament, his "theory of atonement" is 
not theological. The same logic that requires 
a "rationalistic" atonement requires a "rational" 
New Testament. Consilience requires it. A the- 
ology that partakes of both Liberalism and Ortho- 
doxy is a psychological wonder. 

Before we start with our problem, then, we 
must make sure of our ground, and thus deter- 

24 



LAW AND THE CROSS 

mine where we are and anticipate somewhat where 
we are to come out. 

If we begin by renouncing the authority of the 
New Testament we will be at liberty to range the 
fields of fact and philosophy and find a theory that 
would fit into nothing but a system agreeable to 
whatever place we might assign to the New Testa- 
ment. But if we credit that authority we are lim- 
ited to it, and we must find a theory of atonement 
that will harmonize with everything that comes 
under the same New Testament authority. "We 
must be logical if we would be theological. 

The Bible is a great book and it requires great 
assurance to antagonize it, in toto: But it does 
not seem to occur to some minds that consistency 
requires either its primacy as an authority or 
a complete divorce from its theology. An atone- 
ment that is part liberalistio and part evangelical 
belongs neither to the New Testament nor to a 
system of theology. 

This is psychology applied to philosophy: 
And therefore we announce first of all our ad- 
herence to the authority of the Scriptures; our 
theory of the atonement of Christ to be evan- 
gelical, and our problem to be one that will face 
questions growing out of these premises. First, 
Why was an atonement necessary? 

25 



CHAPTER II 

LAW. MORAL GOVERNMENT IMPLIED. MORAL 
ORDER BROKEN. NO REMEDY. 

There are some truths so far from the domain of 
ordinary thinking that they are known to but 
few. They are like the distant nebulae which only 
come to be seen after long exposure of the sensi- 
tive plate to the rays of light that have crossed 
the depths of space. There are other truths which 
are noetic. They are found written in the very 
constitution of man, and if not innate they are 
at least intuitional: Or possibly, the logistic 
process by which they are discovered is so rapid 
that we do not discover the mode of induction 
or deduction. Such truths are common to all 
men, affording evidence of the light with which 
we are dowered. 

Then there are themes of thought which if 
pursued in any relevant direction will open fields 
of discovery to any thinker, however common- 
place some of the premises with which he begins. 
Sometimes the route will be circuitous, as when 

26 






LAW AND THE CROSS 

we ascend a mountain, but the ascent must be 
easy and gradual up to the more rugged heights 
where the outlook will open a landscape that will 
repay the toil of such an effort. 

The atonement is just such a theme. No one 
phase of it can be apprehended without reference 
to its place in the whole system, and that will 
require some attention to details and a study of 
the approaches. It is not so important where 
we begin; but we must begin with a determina- 
tion to pursue the subject to. a just and compre- 
hensive view of its relation to the whole system 
of divine revelation. "We choose to begin with 
law, and with some very commonplace statements 
which the common sense of mankind will approve. 

LAW 

In all ages the common sense of mankind, and 
the judgment of the master minds, have agreed 
in affirming the universal supremacy of law. 
There is something sublime in the thought of its 
eternity, its universality, and its imperial majesty. 
In nature its uniformity of consequences, and in 
government its obligations and penalties— all ac- 
cording to some rule of action. 

For, says Blackstone, "law signifies a rule of 
action, and is applied indiscriminately to all kinds 

27 



LAW AND THE CROSS 

of action, whether animate or inanimate, rational 
or irrational." 

From any standpoint it may be defined, law is 
a rule. Said Bnrke, "law is beneficence acting by 
rule." A definition which will suit our purpose 
and cover all the principles for which we contend 
in our later pages is as follows, viz.: Law is a 
rule of action" prescribed by a superior power 
which the inferior is bound to obey or suffer 
the penalties of disobedience. 

Action Under Law Implies G-overnment. 

Government is of two kinds, physical govern- 
ment and moral government. Physical govern- 
ment is the control of substance and its attributes 
by necessity or force, in contradistinction to free 
will. Moral government, which declares and ad- 
ministers moral law, is the control of free beings 
by motives rather than by force. 

The common sense of mankind and the judg- 
ment of the best thinkers agree in affirming that 
God has a physical government, and that He has 
a moral government. Most intelligent men, not 
educated to a philosophy that has lost its moor- 
ings, believe that God who has written His exist- 
ence on all His works, has likewise written per- 
sonal accountability to moral law upon the hearts 

28 



LAW AND THE CEOSS 

of all His intelligent creatures. It was a great 
thinker who said, "The greatest thought I ever 
had was in the contemplation of endless space 
and my personal accountability to God." 1 A 
thought which belongs to the humblest stevedore 
and to the greatest statesman ; and without which 
anarchy would usurp the place of government. It 
is this sense of personal accountability which se- 
cures life and property, and when it ceases to reign 
in any political division of the world a "reign of 
terror" follows. All the bulwarks of civil and re^ 
ligious liberty, such as constitutions and statutes, 
would be as powerless to stem the tide as the 
thin curtain that hides the sanctity of private life 
and domestic virtue. It only needs to be asso- 
ciated with ideals of socialism and democracy to 
render it perilous. Therefore, while we do not 
intend to discuss modern philosophy, monism, 
pluralism, or dualistic theism, we do affirm that 
any philosophy which when reduced to practice 
would corrupt the mind of a child or render man 
dangerous fe the social order can not be true. 2 

attributed in substance to both Webster and Goethe. 

2 Among the things deprecated by Prof. William James, in his 
"Pluralistic Universe," page 29, is: "The theological machinery which 
spoke of its juridical morality and eschatology, its treatment of God as 
an external contriver, an intelligent and moral governor," etc. The 
learned professor avers that the thought of a past generation seems "as 
foreign to its successor as if it were the expression of a different race 
of men." "As odd as if it were some outlandish savage religion." 

29 



LAW AND THE CROSS 

Denial of the fact of a moral government, in which 
men are free responsible agents, ignores the fact 
that the laws of universal being chord with right- 
eousness ; ignores the moral consciousness and its- 
relation to universal benevolence, but fortunately 
for the peace of society the common sense of 
mankind is arrayed against it. The existence of 
a, Supreme Being and creatures endowed with the 
prerogatives of choice between right and wrong, 
implies and necessitates moral government. Their 
existence and the character of their endowments 
and interests gives rise to obligations and duties, 
and hence to law and to government. Moral gov- 
ernment, which declares and administers law in 
harmony with the character and interests of the 
Supreme Being and His free responsible crea- 
tures, commanding what is right and condemning 
what is wrong, with all that is implied by such 

The only error here is one of application. It is true of the "History 
of Philosophy." Every generation of philosophers repudiates the work 
of its predecessors; and what assurance have we that the next genera- 
tion will adopt the Pluralism of this? From Thales to Professor James 
nothing has stood more than a generation that has contradicted the 
Scriptures and the common sense of mankind. Our fathers and the 
"savages" who built our universities to advance Christian learning, and 
their fathers clear back to those old sheepskin wearers of the eleventh 
of Hebrews, "who THROUGH FAITH subdued kingdoms, wrought right- 
eousness, obtained promises, stopped the mouth of lions, quenched the 
violence of fire, escaped the edge of the sword, out of weakness were 
made strong, waxed valiant in fight, turned to flight the armies of tfhe 
aliens, and others that had trial of cruel MOCKINGS," still have their 
followers, and the same old "theological machinery" "with its juridical 
morality and eschatology" turns out its grist of saints FROM AGE TO 
AGE. 

30 



LAW AND THE CROSS 

general terms, is the only guarantee of an eternal 
moral order. 

Law is not a thing; either in physical or in 
moral government. It is a rale of action growing 
out of the nature of beings and things, and the 
relation they sustain to each other and to the 
order and constitution of nature. Hence right 
or righteousness is not a thing, or a something 
made right or righteous because. God wills it and 
commands it. God commands it because it is 
right or righteous^. Conceptually at least, right- 
eousness grows out of the nature of beings and 
the relation of things ; and God wills it and com- 
mands it because He is a righteous God. There 
is, therefore— there must be — an eternal moral 
order: God, law, government, order. And were 
this all, there would be no discord, no wrecks, and 
no moral evil. But to the entity of being we have 
the endowment of freedom of choice, which makes 
possible both virtue and vice: And in the history 
of moral government we are confronted with the 
fact that the eternal moral order has been inter- 
rupted. Law has been broken. We face the great, 
dark problem which has been called "the prob- 
lem of evil. ' ' Natural evil and moral evil. 3 

3 For discussion of this problem, with distinction between natural 
evil, which is the product of cause and effect, and moral evil, which is 
the product of law broken, see later pages. 

31 



LAW AND THE CROSS 

Moral evil is the result of law broken ; signified 
by that little cosmic word, SIN. 

True, some philosophers deny the fact of sin; 
but the common sense of mankind, and most of 
the best thinkers, looking back over the wreck- 
strewn route of human history, are of the opinion 
that some law has been broken, and the one word 
that defines the cause of it is the word sin. We 
are within the limits of our discussion when both 
the common sense of mankind and the Scriptures 
confirm the statements made, viz. : The universal- 
ity and supremacy of law: The fact of a moral 
government : Moral accountability of free beings : 
Moral evil the product of disobedience to moral 
law; that is sin. 

The Remedy 

After these conditions so briefly premised, we 
come to the problem of a remedy. What is the 
divine remedy — if any — for this great moral de- 
fection in the government of God? Primarily and 
positively the only remedy which the law can 
recognize is the execution of the penalty. As 
a tentative definition of law we stated that "law 
is a rule of action, prescribed by a superior power, 
which the inferior is bound to obey or suffer the 
penalty of disobedience." Hence if sin is pre- 

32 



LAW AND THE CEOSS 

mised, the only legal remedy is the execution of 
the penalty. If it be objected that the penalty, 
death, can not be a remedy to the guilty, we reply, 
Certainly not. There is no remedy for the guilty. 
His only recompense is the forfeiture of life. In 
the nature of things it can be no less than death, 
and the law, backed by the om n ipotence of all that 
is behind it, demands the execution of the only 
penalty known to the record. 

Remedies and rights belong not to the guilty, 
but to the government ; to the Supreme Being and 
His loyal subjects. The problem, then, and one 
that confronted infinite wisdom, must have been 
a great problem if the divine purpose was to 
find a remedy that would apply both to govern- 
mental ends and to the guilty alike, without ap- 
plying the legal remedy, viz., the penalty of death. 

For, it must reconcile the remission of penalty 
to all the legal requirements, and to the restora- 
tion of moral order in the government of God. 
Two great remedies in one, both legal and moral, 
without violating a principle of righteousness or 
compromising the character of God or jeopardiz- 
ing the interests of moral government. 

Such a remedy might well be called an atone- 
ment! And such is the atonement of the New 
Testament. 

3 33 



LAW AND THE CROSS 

The Necessity for Such an Atonement. 

The necessity for such an atonement will be 
better understood and appreciated by a study of 
the philosophy of pardons, as expo sited by Black- 
stone and the great jurists of ancient and mod- 
ern times. Before we enter that field, however, 
it is well to remind the reader that nature knows 
no atonement If we find such an expedient in 
the moral government of God it will be a miracle : 
A new creation^ and one which does not inhere 
in the constitution of either physical or moral 
government; but one that will harmonize with 
both, and as fully manifest the attributes of God 
as either. It will not be a contradiction or a 
compromise or an evasion, but a perfect recon- 
ciliation of all the principles involved to the sal- 
vation of men and the righteous demands of holy 
law. 

God is just. This one great maxim must stand 
at the head of all right conceptions of the con- 
stitution and the administration of moral govern- 
ment Justice is personified 1 and enthroned in 
Him. " Justice and judgment are the habitations 
of His throne. " His government is perfect, and 

IN A PERFECT GOVERNMENT, PERFECT IN ITS CONSTI- 
TUTION AND PERFECT IN ITS ADMINISTRATION, PARDON 
IS IMPOSSIBLE WITHOUT AN ATONEMENT. 

34 



LAW AND THE CROSS 

That God will condemn vice and approve vir- 
tue is assured by the very fact of His righteous- 
ness. The essential character of sin suggests such 
treatment of it as will correspond to its demerit. 
He will treat sin as it deserves to be treated. Ab- 
stractly considered, the principle of justice is as 
free from any bias, toward mercy on the one hand 
or cruelty on the other, as an algebraic problem. 
Protection of the innocent and punishment of the 
guilty, as the bestowments of justice, are on the 
same footing; and our view of it will not be 
correct if it is modified more by the apparent 
severity of its manifestation in the one case than 
by the apparent benevolence of its expression 
in the other. The even poise of its beam must 
not be disturbed by unequal weights. Justice is 
righteousness, however exhibited. Justice as an 
attribute of God is one, and the terms "com- 
mutative, "" distributive, ' ' " punitive, ' ' and ' i pub- 
lic justice, " are employed by moralists to denote 
the various phases of its application. Justice is 
said to be punitive when it relates to the punish- 
ment of sin according to its deserts. Public jus- 
tice has reference to government^ and is intended 
to secure a due administration of law for the pub- 
lic good. The ill desert of sin demands the one; 
the ends of moral government demand the other, 

35 



LAW AND THE CROSS 

The divine government is perfect, both in its 
constitution and its administration; and since the 
demerit of sin deserves punishment and the ends 
of moral government require it, the law makes no 
provision for the remission of sin. If it be just 
to punish sin, and the interests of moral govern- 
ment would be imperiled without it, any concep- 
tion of pardon involves a compromise with both. 
We are aware that this position will provoke dis- 
sent, and some readers will not have the patience 
to consider it. They will reply very plausibly 
that even " civil governments make provision for 
pardons. Surely the divine government is more 
merciful than the human. The idea is preposter- 
ous !" If we answer that we must guard against 
the interpretation of moral law in the light of 
civil law, it will be truly said, and perhaps with 
emphasis, that " there are certain great princi- 
ples OF TRUTH AND RIGHTEOUSNESS WHICH OBTAIN 
IN ALL LAW, HUMAN AND DIVINE." We aCCCpt the 

statement as wholly true* And while we employ 
it in our method we insist that the objector stand 
by it. (For some of the critics will find it uncom- 
fortable.) Is pardon as exhibited in human law® 
based on one of these great principles of truth and 
righteousness? Answer, Yes. Pardon is based 
on Justice. The common idea which regards 

36 



LAW AND THE CROSS 

mercy as the basis of pardon is an error; and is 
not shared by students of law or those familiar 
with the texts of Blackstone, Walker, Kent, and 
other jurists. All jurists are agreed on this point. 
The power of pardon would not exist under a per- 
fect administration of law. The student of law 
discovers very early in his investigations that the 
task allotted is the mastery of a science which, 
apart from constitutions and statutes, is based 
upon certain principles. These principles — some- 
times announced in maxims, sometimes affording 
the basis of decisions and precedents— giving rise 
to whatever rule of action, are directly traceable 
to one common center, namely, that of justice. 

The prerogative of pardon, whether lodged 
with the king, the president, or a body of men rep- 
resenting the executive, is the prerogative of jus- 
tice. It is a corrective means of justice, and its 
utility would be lost but for the lack of justice 
somewhere in the course of law. 

Judge Kent says, "The admission of the 
power is a tacit acknowledgment of the infirmity 
of the course of justice.' ' All jurists are agreed 
in the fact that the prerogative of pardon is a 
corrective measure and intended to be applied 
only to repair some defect either in the law itself 
or the administration of justice. 

37 



LAW AND THE CROSS 

Judge Hoadley, then the Governor of Ohio, 
said in his Annual Message (1885) : "The power 
of pardon is a trust conferred upon the Gov- 
ernor to prevent the miscarriage of justice, and 
not the exercise of mercy or clemency. These 
words so often used in pardon cases are misap- 
plied." "The only proper or ordinary grounds 
for interference with a sentence are, first, either 
absolute innocence, or relative innocence as shown 
by a conviction of too high a grade of crime ; and 
second, sentence for too long a term. They are 
like the cases in which a wise judge will permit a 
nolle." 

Walkeb {American Laic, Lecture VII, Sec. 41) 
affirms the same principle in these words, "The 
pardoning power ought to exist somewhere, be- 
cause criminal justice can never be administered 
so perfectly that every convict shall deserve to 
suffer the full and exact sentence which the law 
announces." Here again we find the prerogative 
of pardon to be that of justice, and its purpose 
corrective. 

Blackstoxe, Vol. I, Par. 269n, is even more 
explicit, "The king is intrusted with this high 
prerogative upon special confidence that he will 
spare those only whose case, could it have been 
foreseen, the law itself may be presumed willing 

38 



LAW AND THE CROSS 

to have excepted out of its general rules, which 
the wisdom of man can not possibly make so per- 
fect as to suit every particular case. ' ' 

We have in this a repetition of the same truth : 
pardon to be employed as a corrective measure, 
supplying a lack of justice and applied only where 
it is deserved. Justice is righteousness, but if 
laymen prefer to call it mercy we do not object, 
provided it is made to apply in harmony with 
justice. 

The author above quoted so employs it in 
definitions of pardon, viz., Vol. II, Bk. iv, Par. 
397, " power to extend mercy where it is de- 
served," and "in such criminal cases as merit an 
exemption from punishment." The term mercy 
must not be strained to. violate the maxim (quoted 
by Blackstone with approval, Vol. II, Par. 398), 
"laws can not be framed on principles of compas- 
sion to guilt." 

Nor in this sense is equity one thing and justice 
another. Says Judge Walker (Lect. IV, Sec. 18) : 
"In fact, the highest conception that can be found, 
of either judge or chancellor, would be that of a 
pure intelligence fully comprehending all legal 
principles and utterly divested of compassion or 
sympathy. If a statute could be imagined to have 
a mind but no heart, an intellect but no feeling: 

39 



LAW AND THE GROSS 

in a word, to be endowed with the single capacity 
of deciding unerringly what the law is in every 
case, it would be a perfect chancellor as well as 
judge : for just in proportion as this icy standard 
is approached both become faultless ministers of 
justice in their respective departments. ' ' (See 
also Blackstone, Vol. I, Pars. 61 and 62.) 

Grotius is quoted as defining equity to be " the 
correction of that wherein the law, by reason of 
its universality, is deficient." 

To these quotations many could be added in 
confirmation, and without further proof we insist 
that the case is made out, namely : That there are 
certain great principles which obtain in the phil- 
osophy of law: That the provision of pardon as 
exhibited in civil law is based on justice : That its 
use is contemplated only as a corrective measure 
to secure the administration of justice, and to be 
applied only "in such criminal cases as merit an 
exemption from punishment." 

If therefore the statement of Judge Kent be 
true, and "the admission of the power is a tacit 
acknowledgment of the infirmity of the course of 
justice," and if the prerogative of pardon is cor- 
rective, then the power of pardon will not exist 
under a perfect administration of law in moral 
government. Since the divine government is per- 

40 



LAW AND THE CROSS 

feet in its constitution and perfect in its adminis- 
tration there can be nothing defective, nothing 
lacking, nothing needing correction, and nothing 
in either the enactment of laws or in their admin- 
istration that can afford any reason or ground for 
the exercise of a prerogative which in civil juris- 
prudence is a corrective measure made necessary 
by infirmity, ignorance, or injustice. 

The only avoidance of this conclusion must be 
found either in a denial that the principles under- 
lying pardon in civil laws apply to the divine gov- 
ernment or in a flat refusal to apply them. 

Why do men shrink from a conclusion which 
plain and palpable logic peremptorily demands? 
In this case the answer may be found in the very 
mind that feels its force and evades the conviction 
of its truth. That pardon is impossible in a per- 
fect system, and hence impossible in the moral 
government of God, per se seems a death knell 
to; all religions, and contradicts intuitively the 
most reverent and cherished sentiments of Chris- 
tian faith and experience. Moreover the employ- 
ment of such conclusions by those who deny the 
truth of Christian experience, and who would sub- 
stitute an ethical system as cold and rigid as it is 
impracticable, is to many the sole and sufficient 
reason for their denial. We have searched litera- 

41 



LAW AND THE CROSS 

ture to find an exception, but in all the books of 
law and theology consulted we have not found one 
which does not invariably justify a denial of this 
conclusion by some expression that betrays this 
fear and this motive. We do not share it, but bow 
to the inexorable logic of its truth and bid it a 
cordial welcome to a place among the "assured 
findings' ' of our philosophy. Later we shall need 
it in our theology. 



42 



CHAPTER in. 

IN A PERFECT GOVERNMENT; PERFECT IN ITS CON- 
STITUTION AND PERFECT IN ADMINISTRATION; 
PARDON IS IMPOSSIBLE, PER SE. 

"The obligations of the law of G-od will last 
while He is on the throne of the universe. Pardon 
does not repeal law nor suspend it nor negative it. 
There is no such thing as pardon in His govern- 
ment ; when His law is violated suffering must be 
endured, either by the original offender or by an 
adequate substitute. " (John P. Newman, Su- 
premacy of Law, p. 81.) 

Beccakia (1764) wrote a treatise on crimes and 
punishments which Voltaire called the "Code of 
Humanity," and on which he wrote a Commen- 
tary. The work was translated into the principal 
languages of Europe, including modern Greek, 
and rapidly ran through six editions. Catherine 
II of Russia caused it to be transcribed into her 
new code; and many of the reforms in the penal 
codes of the principal European nations are trace- 
able to Beccaria's work. 

43 



LAW AND THE CROSS 

It pointed out distinctly and temperately the 
grounds of the right of punishment and the rela- 
tions of pardon; and said a French writer, " Never 
did so small a book produce such great effects.' ' 
In view of other authorities which we have before 
quoted a single reference will suffice. The philos- 
ophy of pardon is expressed in these words, viz., 
"In a perfect legal system pardon should be ex- 
cluded, for the clemency of the prince seems a tacit 
disapproval of the law." 

It does not require extended legal knowledge 
to discern the conflict between the demands of 
justice and the remission of penalties. In common 
parlance, "The protection of society demands the 
punishment of the guilty. ' ' The mercy that would 
open prison doors would be taken from the inno- 
cent and bestowed upon guilt. Such general am- 
nesty would be "atoned" by society at large in 
as much or more suffering than a just execution of 
penalties would inflict upon those who deserve it. 

In view of the conflict between the dictates of 
mercy to offenders and their duty to conserve the 
public safety, the problem of pardons has vexed 
every authority of State, from the days of Solomon 
down to the last Board of Pardons in the sover- 
eign States of the American Republic. And we 
insist that this conflict is organic. It applies 

U 



LAW AND THE CEOSS 

therefore to all law, divine as well as human. Does 
it then follow that the application of these princi- 
ples should exclude mercy from the exercise of 
executive clemency in actual practice? By no 
means. We must not lose sight of the fact that 
justice is the end of all law, and that pardon is 
admissible when it is just. It is true, however, 
that an intelligent regard for these principles is 
necessary, and if more generally applied the pub- 
lic would be spared the numerous blunders and 
abuses of misdirected sentiment in pardon cases. 
The best of human institutions are like the 
hand-made toys of children compared with the 
precise and exactly fitted products of machinery. 
The more cumbrous and complicated the mechan- 
ism the more need of "play" between the parts. 
Every boy acts on this principle, and he knows 
why the wheels of his wagon "wabble." In civil 
governments however wisely the laws be con- 
structed and justice be administered from a hu- 
man point of view, there will always be some dis- 
parity between them. To err on the side of mercy 
is therefore admissible and dictated by every sen- 
timent of humanity. It is divinely humane. But 
it is not divine. 
,$? The laws of God, like the poise of His planets, 
need no guys and stays to control their place or 

45 



LAW AND THE CROSS 

correct their tendencies. Error in the realm of 
the absolute is impossible. Once you admit the 
fact of a divine precept with its declaration of 
penalty, you bar the thought of pardon as logically 
and absolutely as the extinction of the sun, moon, 
and stars would, in thought, mantle the world in a 
midnight of death. If the precept is just and the 
penalty just, the intervention of a prerogative 
voiding its execution would be unjust. It would 
violate a principle, and that principle the basis of 
all law, human and divine; namely, the principle 
of justice. The serious words of Bishop Newman 
quoted at the head of this chapter deserve to be 
repeated and emphasized: " There is no suchj 
thing as pardon in His government ; when His law 
is violated suffering must be endured, either by the 
original offender or by an adequate substitute." 
The blasted face of nature and the great, dark 
problem of evil, with all the sufferings entailed 
upon the innocent as well as the guilty, and which 
make history read like the story of a cursed world, 
had a cause. That cause was broken law. And 
notwithstanding a providential government giving 
direction to its ultimate destiny, the history of 
man is bloody and dark, while but few of the hu- 
man species ever reach the plane of a life compat- 
ible with their capacities and ambitions. A self- 

46 



LAW AND THE CROSS 

ish complaisance may close its eyes to the status 
of sinful and suffering millions, but they suffer 
in atonement for somebody's wrong. No senti- 
mental ingenuity can ever restore the thought of 
pardon to the mind that has once comprehended 
the full meaning of justice as embodied in moral 
precept and moral penalty under government per- 
fect in constitution and administration. God could 
not be just and justify the ungodly. It would 
compromise 'God and justify sin. Legal barriers 
immutable and insurmountable cast their shadows 
across the immensity of moral being. The law is 
holy, just, and good, and that law demands obedi- 
ence to its precept or the suffering of its penalty. 
Law without penalty would not be law. Its high- 
est virtue would be only good advice sanctioned 
by such authority; which would give it prestige 
but not power. 

The divine law corresponds to the divine char- 
acter and requires conformity thereto, both on 
account of the divine nature and the ends of moral 
order. Sin, or the transgression of the divine law, 
demands penalty on account of its demerit (puni- 
tive justice), and on account of "due administer 
tion of law for the public good" (public justice). 



47 



LAW AND THE CROSS 

POSSIBLE REMEDY. 

A remedy therefore, whatever its nature, must 
be first of all a legal remedy. A remedy which 
will harmonize with the principles involved in 
these: the divine character, the requirements of 
moral government We must keep in mind the 
fact that there is nothing in the divine adminis- 
tration needing remedy, as in civil cases. We 
have seen that in civil laws the prerogative of 
pardon is a corrective measure, a remedy. The 
word remedy can not apply to the divine govern- 
ment in the same sense. The remedy we seek 
therefore does not reside in the divine preroga- 
tive, the mere option of the Supreme Being, nor 
in any expedient known to moral government. 
Its purpose is to render possible the salutary ends 
of pardon without conflicting with the law or com- 
promising the divine character. Think what com- 
plicated ends it must compass in order to be a 
perfect legal and moral remedy! 

Moral government is based on freedom of 
choice ; hence the remedy must not be imperative, 
but available only, to accountable creatures by 
their own volitional acceptance. It must not in- 
fringe the liberty of moral agents, who may choose 
to reject it and elect to surfer the penalty. It 
must be a remedy the exercise of which is optional 

48 



LAW AND THE CEOSS 

to the divine prerogative: both whether it shall 
be provided and when it shall be applied. For He 
is under no necessity either to provide a remedy 
or to bestow it. 

It must be a remedy which will conform to 
the divine character and conserve the interests of 
moral government aside from the law and its pen- 
alty. And since the demerit of sin (punitive jus- 
tice) and the public good (public justice) demand 
the execution of the penalty, a sufficient remedy 
must be one that would reconcile the pardon of 
sin to a remission of penalty and as fully declare 
the justice of God as the execution of the penalty 
itself would have declared it. Then, too, if it is ai 
sufficient remedy it must not only thus afford a 
ground of pardon, but it must provide for the sal- 
utary ends for which it is designed, viz. : the res- 
toration of the sinner to the divine favor and to 
amenability and obedience to law, together with all 
those highest ends originally sought in the crea- 
tion of man and the inauguration of moral govern- 
ment, not only as related to the destiny of man, 
but the character and interests of all intelligences. 

If such a remedy is possible, and if it can be 
found and applied to a reconciliation of all the 
legal and moral principles involved, with due rec- 
ognition of the demerits of sin and the interests 
4 49 



LAW AND THE CBOSS 

of moral government, there can be no reason why 
it may not be provided. 

According to the Holy Scriptures the Atone- 
ment of Jesus Christ is that remedy. All the con- 
ditions that necessitated the execution of the pen- 
alty, or a perfect legal and moral equivalent for 
the penalty, were met in His death. 

When we speak of necessity with reference to 
the conduct of the Supreme Being a contingency 
is always implied. When, for instance, He as- 
sumes an obligation by the creation of free beings 
and the declaration of law, the enforcement of that 
law becomes a necessity. And when He purposes 
the redemption of man either the penalty must be 
suffered or a legal equivalent must be substituted. 
The atonement is therefore a contingent necessity ; 
a sine qua non (an indispensable condition). 

These premises and this conclusion agree per- 
fectly with the New Testament doctrine of tEe 
Atonement of Christ. 

The third chapter of Eomans contains a com- 
plete epitome of the doctrine as taught by the 
Apostle Paul. He affirms that "There is none 
righteous, no, not one. All the world guilty be- 
fore God. For all have sinned and come short of 
the glory of God." 

"But now the righteousness of God is mani- 
50 



LAW AND THE CROSS 

f ested without the law : even the righteousness of 
God." He then proceeds to show how the right- 
eousness (justice) of God is manifested, namely, 
" through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus: 
whom God hath set forth to be a propitiation, to 
declare His righteousness." He emphasizes this 
terrible term, "the righteousness of God," by re^- 
peating it, "to declare, I say, at this time His 
righteousness. ' ' If the Supreme Being should de- 
clare His righteousness by the execution of the 
penalty, what an awful manifestation at any time ! 
But now, at this time, He declares it in Jesus 
Christ, whom He hath set forth! to be a propiti- 
ation for the remission of sins. The climax of his 
whole argument is. included in this twenty-sixth 
verse. It reads in full, "To declare I say at this 
time His righteousness : that He might be just and 
the Justifier of him which believeth in Jesus." 



51 



CHAPTER IV. 

REMEDIAL EXPEDIENTS: FAMILY GOVERNMENT. RE- 
PENTANCE AND REFORMATION NOT A LEGAL 
REMEDY. INCONSISTENT OPPONENTS AND ADVO- 
CATES. 

Every reader who has given due weight to the 
facts we have recited and the legal principles we 
have sought to emphasize, will anticipate the aim 
and course of this argument and hasten to such a 
conclusion as we have prematurely anticipated in 
the previous chapter, namely, that if pardon is im- 
possible in a government perfect in its constitution 
and perfect in its administration, then the exer- 
cise of that prerogative will require first of all 
that something be done to reconcile the legal and 
moral principles involved. Therefore the condi- 
tions which give rise to the necessity for an atone- 
ment indicate largely the nature of that atone- 
ment. But lest our conclusions seem to lack some- 
thing in the premises it will be necessary to give 
some attention to certain expedients in the way of 
remedy, commended as sufficient, and by some 
moralists as all-sufficient, without an atonement. 
The most formidable objection to the need of an 
atonement is one that presumes on the beneficence 

52 



LAW AND THE CROSS 

of the divine being and His ability to pardon sin 
on the sole ground of repentance and reformation. 
If, says the objector, G-od is love, and if the guilty 
is so far reconciled to His law to repent and re- 
form, why may not God exercise His right of pre- 
rogative and forgive sin without an atonement? 
This objection is made the more plausible by recit- 
ing the instances of family government and the 
exercise of pardon between man and man in which 
no atonement is proffered or needed. 

The argument is specious. It wholly ignores 
facts which render the instances cited not parallel 
with the conditions of moral government. Pa- 
ternal government and moral government are 
parallel in so many respects that we are in danger 
of ignoring the very vital principles in which they 
differ ; differing sometimes so widely that the con- 
trast is that of opposites. In a sense Grod is a 
father; but He is more: He is a sovereign. And 
as such He sustains a relation to law and to gov- 
ernment which is not paralleled in either parental 
or civil government.. 

To make an instance of parental authority par- 
allel it would require that one be both a father 
and a governor, or a father and a magistrate ; and 
in that case it would be easy to see that his official 
relation would involve obligations which do not 

53 



LAW AND THE CROSS 

belong to parental authority, and the prerogative 
of pardon could not be exercised by mere parental 
caprice. 

In Jevon's Logic, page 177, we have an illus- 
tration of this kind of ' ' fallacy of accident, ' ' viz. : 
"It would be a case of the direct fallacy of acci- 
dent to infer that a magistrate is justified in using 
his power to forward his own religious views, be- 
cause every man lias the right to inculcate his own 
opinions." "Evidently a magistrate as a man 
has the rights of otlier men, but in his capacity of 
a magistrate he is distinguished from other men, 
and he must not infer of his special powers in this 
respect what is only true of his rights as a man. ' ' 
We may add to this very apt illustration that man 
in his capacity as a man, a father, a magistrate, a 
surgeon, a minister, or a friend in his conduct to- 
ward others is necessarily governed by the rela- 
tion which he sustains to them. For instance, 
further, "He who thrusts a knife into another 
person should be punished ; a surgeon in operating 
does so, therefore he should be punished,' ' is a 
converse fallacy of accident. But neither of these 
fallacies in magnitude is at all comparable to the 
fallacy of comparing parental government (or the 
conduct of man with man) to the divine govern- 
ment in the matter of pardoning sin— human ca- 

54 



LAW AND THE CEOSS 

price with the divine prerogative. The relation 
we sustain to each other is not the same, and the 
relation a father sustains to his children is not the 
same relation that God sustains to; the guilty; 
therefore our conduct in any case is not a, criterion 
of His conduct. 

Fifty pages would not make it any clearer that 
the whole argument is based on a fallacy, and yet 
this is the chief reliance of those who deny the 
necessity for an atonement. 

We find nothing in the literature of unbelief, 
which admits of human accountability to God, that 
does not presume on the relation which God sus- 
tains to us as a Father, and the relation which we 
sustain to each other as men to afford the ground 
and reason of pardon, instead of an atonement. 

That relation being other than the relation as- 
sumed the argument loses its force, and we are 
compelled to conclude that the conduct of a, moral 
governor is not illustrated by the conduct of either 
a father or a beneficent man. 

Ordinarily, to an unbeliever it is enough to 
say that if he was but a civic ruler and his son 
should commit a crime against the law, much as 
his fatherly disposition might incline him to par- 
don the offense and remit the penalty, he would be 
compelled to face an embarassment in fact which 

55 



LAW AND THE CROSS 

in theory lie is inclined to ignore; and through 
some such rift in the clouds he might get a glimpse 
of the needed atonement. But among the critics 
we have met are a few ministers who fondly cling 
to this notion of a "humane Cfod" in utter disre- 
gard both of the fallacy in the comparison, and of 
the New Testament plan of pardon which, as they 
must admit, is grounded wholly on the "redemp- 
tion which is in Christ Jesus, " and not on the pa- 
ternity of God. 

It is not strange that men unaccustomed to the 
study of law or theology should resort to such pal- 
pable subterfuge; but that a theologian should 
give it any weight is chargeable either to a false 
philosophy with reference to the divine govern- 
ment, or to the fact that he has overlooked the 
divine beneficence in providing an atonement. A 
beneficence which was exhibited before the atone- 
ment was perfected, and which was not the result 
of the atonement, but the cause of it; and which 
so far transcends the human as the heavenly 
transcends the earthly. 

This distinction between paternal government 
and moral government so easily overlooked is one 
of those "trifling incongruities" to which we re- 
ferred in our introduction, and which belongs to a 
loose theology. In theories they are not always 

56 



LAW AND THE CROSS 

harmless, while in fact and in history such "tri- 
fling incongruities" put into practice have routed 
armies ; yea, and wrecked worlds. 

It is characteristic of these times to treat law 
and penalties, and the great serious warnings of 
revelation with slack regard. But fortunately for 
the peace of the world Grod has given to each of us 
what no parent can duplicate, i. e., a sense of per- 
sonal accountability to moral law, which when sin 
is actually committed becomes a sense of condemn 
nation that no prerogative can wipe away. Some- 
how we feel that it must be atoned. 

Sin against God is something more than wrong 
against an equal. 1 

Repentance and Refoemation. 
Having treated one phase of this "most fre- 
quent and formidable " objection to the need of 
an atonement, it remains that we notice the other, 
viz., that repentance and reformation is all that is 
needed to justify the Supreme Being in remitting 
the penalty. 

J Dr. R. W. Dale, "Christian Doctrine," page 246, in a paragraph 
of remarkable clearness puts it thus: "If there were nothing more in 
the divine forgiveness of human sin than a dismissal of what may be 
described as personal resentment against the sinner, a victory of the 
divine love over divine indignation provoked by ingratitude, disobedi- 
ence, and revolt, it might be safe to argue that as we ourselves forgive 
without requiring an 'atonement,' the transcendent goodness of God 
would require none. But as the divine forgiveness obliterates the sense 
of guilt and releases the sinner from penalties which he has incurred 
by his violation of the eternal moral order, it may well be that an 
'atonement' is necessary as the condition of God's forgiveness, though 
it is not necessary as the condition of ours." 

57 



LAW AND THE CROSS 

To this objection, put in its most plausible 
light, is sometimes added a sentiment whicb af- 
firms that a moral life will satisfy the conditions 
of beneficent justice. 

It is a common resort, and so co mm on that its 
treatment will be regarded as com m onplace. But 
the legal principles involved bring it within our 
purpose here, and we can not permit an enemy to 
escape merely because he is dressed in every-day 
clothes. 

Repentance, which if genuine includes " works 
meet for repentance," can not effect the legal 
principles involved. Though its genuineness be 
proved by confession and abandonment of sin, 
submission to the divine law, and a return to obedi- 
ence, it can not always make restitution or undo 
the wrong done. But if it could do so with perfect 
mathematical equasion, the claims of law would in 
nowise be met. So far as the law is concerned it 
avails a condemned felon nothing to repent The 
law takes no notice of his contrition. The fact is 
a matter of universal knowledge, but the principle 
is often overlooked or ignored, especially with ref- 
erence to the divine law^ It is not only true of 
common law in criminal cases, but it must be true 
of the higher law because the principles and the 
reasons are the same. 

58 



LAW AND THE CROSS 

"The principles and axioms of law, which are 
general propositions flowing from abstracted rea- 
son and not accommodated to times and to men, ' ' 
(Montesquieu, "Spirit of Laws," XI, 6. Quoted 
also by Blackstone with approval), apply with 
equal reason and with more force to the divine 
law. Thus the law breaker is legally dead; and 
admitting all that is possible to the genuineness of 
his present protestations, or even the certainty of 
future loyalty, based on a thorough change of the 
attitude and intentions, nothing he can plead 
avails anything to change his relation to the law, 
except to surfer the penalty. Repentance indeed 
has a moral value, but it can not be conceived to 
have sufficient value to amend broken law. The 
proper attitude of a criminal is one of contrition, 
and he is "justified" in assuming such an attitude 
by the guilt that attaches to him; but no present 
disposition of mind, however becoming to his con- 
demned state, can be esteemed a legal equivalent 
for either obedience to the precept or endurance 
of the penalty of the law. 

And yet the objection we are considering as- 
sumes that repentance has a legal value, and to the 
extent of an atonement for sin. 

It does not change the conditions nor add any- 
thing to the merits of the case to include reforma- 

59 



LAW AND THE CROSS 

tion in the formula. It is the same thing empha- 
sized. 

Reformation, even if carried to the extent of 
transformation, involving an entire change of the 
heart and life, can not be presumed to change the 
legal aspects of the case. Present or future con- 
formity to the law can not be supposed to amend 
a previous want of conformity. 

To put the matter crudely : The obedience of 
to-day can not exempt from the requirements of 
obedience for to-morrow, and we have only to 
transpose the terms to see that repentance and 
reformation is ineffectual at any period of life to 
meet the legal requirements of any other period; 
and the supposition that it can do so must be based 
upon the theory that a sinner is competent not 
only to render perfect obedience to the law of 
God for the time given, but that he is able also to 
atone for his sins by rendering such service of su- 
pererogation as that the excess of his virtues may 
be applied to cancel former remissness. Thus one 
who would disclaim any sympathy with the doc- 
trine of "meritorious works of supererogation" 
will resort to the same principle to prove his the- 
ory of "good works" as a ground of justification. 

The law demands perfect obedience to its pre- 
cepts, and it is evident that perfect obedience in 

60 



LAW AND THE CKOSS 

one instance can not be made to answer the lack 
of it in another. 

Thus this most common and most formidable 
objection to the need of an atonement which pre- 
sumes on "the beneficence of God as a Father and 
His ability to pardon sin on conditions of repent- 
ance and reformation," is found to be a specious 
argument; superficially fair, but contradicted by 
every legal principle involved, both in God's rela- 
tion to men and in' our relation to law. 

The New Testament Scriptures agree perfectly 
with this legal and logical conclusion, and the texts 
are so frequent and so familiar that if they were 
all quoted the reader would skip them and go on to 
the next chapter. "Knowing that a man is not 
justified by the works of the law, for by the works 
of the law shall no flesh be justified. " Gal. 2 :16. 2 

2 It will occur to the reader that in answer to the objection just 
treated we have covered about the ground of feasible and ordinary re- 
fusal to admit the necessity for an atonement. In general, there is but 
one other. That belongs wholly to the realm of negation. It denies the 
premises which the common sense of mankind will admit, namely, that 
man is accountable to a personal God, and that he is a sinner in need 
of salvation. It either denies or minifies the turpitude of sin, or treats 
it otherwise than it is treated in the New Testament. It belongs to the 
realm of philosophy rather than to a place in systematic theology. Its 
premises are related to the Pauline doctrine of atonement about as 
modern Pluralistic Pantheism is related to the Cosmogony of Moses. It 
breaks completely with the New Testament and the common sense, and 
when it speaks or writes on the atonement of Christ, pays it about the 
same attention that Daniel Webster said his opponent paid to the subject 
of debate; that is, "not so much as the compliment of a passing glance." 
St. Paul's terrific arraignment of sin and sinners (in Rom. 1.2. & 3.), 
"that every mouth may be stopped, and all the world may become 
guilty before God," is the only possible ground on which rests the need 
of an atonement; and this denied, minified, or ignored, an atonement 
becomes a non sequitur an unwarranted conclusion. 

61 



CHAPTER V. 

A DRY SUBJECT— INTERESTING. INCONSISTENT OP- 
PONENTS AND ADVOCATES. ROMANS A LAW BOOK. 
INDICTMENT. PLEAS. VERDICT. 

Some would say that this burrowing into legal lore 
in search of principles is dry reading. Certainly 
it is. Dry as an "Abstract of Title." Docu^ 
ments on file in the office of probate are very un- 
edifying, unless one happens to be an heir or an 
assign. If then the property is in dispute even an 
abstract reads well. 

In this case nobody can read it for us. The 
liberty to do our own thinking entails the duty of 
doing so ; else even our interest in it might be im- 
periled. "We have a testamentary document^ and 
unless the testator was legally competent and the 
title is clear it is worthless. The whole question 
of estate goes with legal competency, and we are 
concerned to know. For, unless the atonement of 
Christ is a legal substitute for the penalty of sin, 
the whole fabric of grace and glory is a dream, op- 
posed by principles of justice as immutable as the 
throne of God. 

For the ordinary man there is not much of any- 
62 



LAW AND THE CEOSS 

thing in this world beyond subsistence ; and indeed 
this is about the only subject in which we all have 
a permanent interest: a subject which will con- 
cern the nations of the dead, and every being born 
or yet to be, when nothing is left to mark the place 
where we lived or the dust we left. ^What makes 
anything of practical interest to us is our relation 
to it when that relation is realized. 

It was this that led Moses to make a choice that 
gripped the future and made his fame as imperish- 
able as the pyramids, and is it not true that any 
man, however obscure, may discover a like attrac- 
tion in the immutable things of the law and the 
cross with the same chance of a "better inherit- 
ance?' ? Our "abstract" then will afford us more 
interest if we study it in the light of a legacy. 

It requires some grasp of thought to take in 
the two apparently opposite ideas of a perfect 
moral government with its just requirements and 
a plan of redemption that proffers the pardon of 
sin. Those who affirm the first and deny the sec- 
ond, and those who deny the first and affirm the 
second, are alike inconsistent. In order to get a 
clear understanding of the problem let it be sep- 
arated. First, the moral government of Grod is 
perfect. In a government, perfect in its constitu- 
tion and perfect in its administration, there is no 

63 



LAW AND THE CEOSS 

room for pardon as a corrective measure. Par- 
don is therefore impossible. 

Second, but God has provided an atonement 
which meets the just requirements of perfect 
moral government, and admits the exercise of par- 
don. 

We have seen that the law requires obedience 
or penalty. Hence the organic difficulty in the 
way of pardon is the justice (righteousness) of 
God. Sin being premised, and the whole world 
guilty before God, He will manifest (declare) His 
justice by executing the penalty. 

"But now" the New Testament avers that 
"Jesus Christ is set forth a propitiation, to de- 
clare the righteousness of God, that He might be 
just and the justifier. ' ' We interpret these words 
to mean that the just requirements of moral gov- 
ernment are thus met by the death of Christ (in- 
stead of the death of transgressors), and that the 
justice of God is declared as fully in the atone- 
ment as it is required to be declared by the execu- 
tion of the penalty itself. Hence the pardon of sin 
is made possible in the perfect moral government 
of God. Thus while pardon remits the penalty 
in the case of the guilty, the justice that required 
its execution is not remitted, but actually met in 
the death of Jesus Christ. 

64 



LAW AND THE CEOSS 

If it is urged that perfect moral government 
admits of no pardon we agree ; but if it is claimed 
that perfect moral government admits of no atone- 
ment we demur. 

The two propositions are two very unlike 
things. Moral government does admit of atone- 
ment, and no objector can show a single legal prin- 
ciple to be violated by its admission. He can show 
the violation of principles in moral government by 
admitting pardon without a legal equivalent; Trat 
he can not show any such violation against the ad- 
mission of an atonement: for an atonement is a 
legal equivalent. If he affirms the impossibility 
of legal equivalents he has overlooked the very 
definition of law, i. e., obedience or penalty. Pen- 
alty itself is the legal (not moral) equivalent of 
obedience: and a legal substitute foe the pen- 
alty (atonement) contradicts no law, human or 
divine. But it renders pardon possible in a gov- 
ernment perfect in its constitution and perfect in 
its administration. 

Therefore the proposition, which for clearness 
we divided, when combined into one presents a 
consistent whole, namely, the perfect moral gov- 
ernment of God admits of no pardon ; but Grod has 
provided an atonement which meets the just re- 
quirements of moral government and renders par- 
5 65 



LAW AND THE CROSS 

don possible. If up to this point we have made 
our position clear we are ready to inquire into the 
nature of the atonement, in reply to the question 
of what an atonement must do and be in order to 
the pardon of sin. 

But we have said of the two apparently oppo- 
site ideas of a perfect government with pardon im- 
possible and an atonement which renders pardon 
possible, that those who affirm the first and deny 
the second, and those who deny the first and advo- 
cate the second are alike inconsistent. 

And lest we be not understood or invite attack 
from either source we must give both attention 
before we proceed with the argument, even at the 
expense of continuity. 

Because some men, rated as "infidels," with 
better knowledge of the legal principles involved 
than some of the theologians, have asserted that 
in a perfect government pardon is impossible ; and 
because they have sought to include in their defini- 
tions the pardon proffered through our Lord Jesus 
Christ, their conclusions have been subjected to 
prompt and positive denial. 

This demurrer is sometimes dignified by the 
names of very able and scholarly men; usually 
with brevity and sometimes with rebuke. 

Appalling is the word they apply ; but it is ap- 
66 



LAW AND THE CEOSS 

plieid in the wrong place: Not to the rejection of 
Christ, but to the truth affirmed. Meanwhile the 
lawyer looks on with disdain and rather glories 
in being called a monster by his pious brother. 

Now we admit that "pardon impossible in a 
perfect government' ' has a refractory look; and 
when it is made to include the remedial means of 
the gospel it requires some patience to hear it 
without chagrin. It seems to sweep clean through 
the moral government of God, taking with it not 
only the possibility of pardons, but the only legal 
expedient which renders pardon possible. 

Nevertheless truth requires us to affirm that 
the lawyer is right in his first premise, and that 
the second does not necessarily follow. By all the 
legal principles involved pardon is impossible to 
the idea of a perfect government, and the only 
usual denial or evasion of this truth grows out 
of the unwelcome inferences which seem to follow. 
The objector instead of looking back over the 
ground to find a flaw in the argument looks for- 
ward to the things inferred, and since they are 
not congenial to his theology he repudiates the 
very truth he needs on which to ground the neces- 
sity for an atonement. 

Pardon impossible under perfect legal sanc- 
tions is a weapon which must be taken out of the 

67 



LAW AND THE CROSS 

wrong hands and wielded in defense of any atone- 
ment, the need of which is grounded in the right- 
eousness of God, or the rectoral requirements of 
moral government. 

The imperial demands of law in a perfect gov- 
ernment can not be waived aside by a denial, any 
more than the only legal expedient provided for 
pardon in the propitiation of Christ. In no in- 
stance that has come to our knowledge has there 
been any attempt to examine the ground of the 
argument, by which it is proved that pardon is 
impossible in perfect government; but the conclu- 
sion is always treated by these presumably ortho- 
dox writers as though it were but dogmatic asser- 
tion to be answered by the same dogmatic dis- 
avowal. Says the skeptic, sometimes versed in the 
law, "Pardon is impossible in a perfect govern- 
ment ; therefore any scheme of salvation that looks 
backward to the remission of sins, instead of for- 
ward to the reformation and partial atonement of 
a better life, is not possible under the exact condi- 
tions of perfect justice." 

Says the theologian: "We deny your first 
premise. Pardon is not impossible in divine gov- 
ernment. God is merciful as well as just. Your 
conclusion cancels the whole gospel," etc. 

The skeptic has only to ask, "If then sin is par- 
68 



LAW AND THE CROSS 

donable in a perfect moral government, why was 
an atonement necessary to make it so?" 

The truth is our theologian has assumed an un- 
tenable position. We are handling great verities, 
and it becomes us to be cautious lest we drop 
dynamite among our own defenses. 

The easy and only solution is one that affirms 
the whole truth, namely, that pardon is impossi- 
ble in a perfect goverment, per se; that there is a 
governmental bar to the exercise of the divine 
mercy, and every orthodox theologian from Paul 
to our deponent has always recognized such great 
organic difficulty in the way of pardon, which could 
only be met by the death of the Son of God. 

The cross and the cross only intercepts the ter- 
rible demands of penalty, while the government of 
God still stands perfect; obedience is still re- 
quired, and the claims of law perfectly adjusted 
to the moral economy that God has established are 
not ignored nor the righteousness of God compro- 
mised by justifying sinners. We will dismiss our 
inconsistent theologian with but one other thought, 
viz., that if pardon was possible in a perfect gov- 
ernment then the atonement of Christ loses its im- 
perative significance as the only possible ground of 
pardon. Then either God could pardon sin by 
mere prerogative or on some ground other than 

69 



LAW AND THE CROSS 

the sufferings and death of Christ Why then the 
three times unanswered prayer of G-ethsemane ? 
Why the dreadful cross! Would such a Father 
endure the crucifixion of such a Son merely as a 
preferable expedient, when it was possible to em- 
ploy other means to attain the same ends ? Would 
any father permit his son to endure such hours of 
mortal torture for any less motive than his eternal 
honor and the eternal loss of immortal souls ? 

If you are an orthodox theologian bury your 
theology in the nomenclature of words, but spare 
us the conviction that you mean that something 
else would atone for sin as well as the death of the 
Son of God! 

In concluding this parenthetic chapter, what 
shall we say of the "inconsistent objector" who 
affirms our first premise as to moral government, 
and denies the pardon of sin by means of redemp- 
tion? That is, who affirms pardon impossible ab- 
solutely. 

Of course his conclusion is appalling. This 
very fact argues mightily if not conclusively for 
an atonement. We will meet him fairly on his 
own ground; that is, on the ground of infinitely 
perfect justice. Can it be possible that a just (not 
to say beneficent) God would subject His creatures 
to the awful perils of freedom (which He has 

70 



LAW AND THE CROSS 

done) under a perfect moral government and in 
which pardon is impossible, without at the same 
time a foreordained purpose of redempton, as free 
to our choice as vice or virtue is! Would He 
expose the millions of His creatures to the ter- 
rible contingencies of moral freedom, under a 
perfect government, without any provision which 
would render it consistent for Him to exercise 
the prerogative of pardon? 

It is inconceivable. It would not be just. 
There is a meaning in the words "that He might 
be just" that dates from the eternal purpose. It 
is unreasonable to suppose that a just God would 
not provide against the exigencies of moral gov- 
ernment. The thought is well-nigh inconceiv- 
able, and the only escape with an objector will be 
sooner or later to minify sin or its penalty, and 
thus escape the appalling consequences of his 
creed. 

The only thinkable possibility of a soul lost, 
with a just God on the throne, is not because His 
government is perfect, nor because He has not 
made pardon possible, but because of what He can 
not do, namely: He can not save a soul which, 
free to sin and free to remain a sinner, refuses 
to accept a pardon freely offered through the 
atonement of Jesus Christ. 

71 



LAW AND THE GROSS 

To save that soul is the one thing which God 
can not do; and a rejection of Jesus Christ there- 
fore puts a sinner under a government perfect in 
its constitution and perfect in its administration, 
where without an atonement pardon is impossible 
forever. 1 

In view of the foregoing we again affirm that 
pardon is impossible under a perfect administra- 
tion of law; and that either the penalty must be 
suffered or a substitute for the penalty be pro- 
vided in order to the remission of that penalty. 

Having seen that pardon by the divine prerog- 
ative is not possible, that parental government is 
not parallel, that an atonement is possible, we 
pause to ask whether these conclusions are con- 
firmed or contradicted by the New Testament au- 
thorities ? 

Chief among these are the Pauline Epistles. 

The Book of Romans is the greatest treatise on 
the subject of the atonement ever written. 

If it is found that these premises are ignored 
by the apostle, and that his thesis does not recog- 
nize the impossibility of pardon under a perfect 

ir The New Testament gospel plainly, repeatedly, and. positively de- 
clares that the divine ability to save sinners rests on the atonement of 
Jesus Christ — "Wherefore He is able to save." It is equally explicit 
in declaring that some men will be forever lost. Does any good man 
suppose that God would permit the eternal damnation of a soul if He 
could help it? Let every man face his own philosophy. 

72 



LAW AND THE CEOSS 

administration of law, then) we do well to recon- 
sider the matter and modify our conclusions. But 
if we find that St. Paul does recognize the princi- 
ples here asserted, that he does presume that par- 
don is impossible without an atonement, and for 
the same reasons, then our contention is proved, 
and we may proceed to inquire into the nature of 
the atonement itself. 

Therefore we will devote the next chapter to 
the Book of Eomans : to an analysis of St. Paul's 
method, and to the argument by which he proves 
the need of an atonement. 



73 



CHAPTER VL 

PAUL THE APOSTLE. THE BOOK OF ROMANS A LAW 

BOOK. PLEADINGS, ETC. 

"The Book of Romans is a summary of the hand- 
to-hand synagogue debates of Paul with the Jews 
of his day." "A concise written summary. A 
most compressed yet most comprehensive system 
of theology, in which every point of Christian doc- 
trine takes its place with a most amazing com- 
pleteness and symmetry. " (" Introduction to Ro- 
mans," D. D. Whedoru) 

ROMANS. 

St. Paul is at Alexandria, Troas, facing Europe 
and about to cross over. Behind him lies Asia 
Minor, which he is divinely forbidden to re-enter 
and preach. Before him is the i&gean Sea, and 
beyond, the shores of Europe. The midnight vi- 
sion invites hi m to i i Come over and help us:" the 
gospel, and hence the fortunes of future Christian 
civilization, clinging to the skirts of the great 
apostle. 

74 



LAW AND THE CROSS 

What a picture that would make ! What great 
pivotal event in the history of mankind will com- 
pare with that of his crossing over! Is it that of 
Alexander, who with his armies had crossed the 
same Hellespont on his way to the subjugation of 
the East ? The one to lay the foundation of Greek 
civilization, language, and letters, and to prepare 
the, way for synagogues and Septuagints! The 
other to make use of them and to carry the gospel 
West! 

Blow, ye winds ! And buoy ye waters up that 
gallant ship: the cargo of a world's concern, the 
civilization of Europe and America; and, follow- 
ing the sun in its course, the ultimate Christian- 
ization of Japan and Korea, of China and India, 
of Africa and the Islands of the Sea. 

Would we have been Heathen or Moham- 
medan, if (under "the theory of evolution as the 
explanation of the history of literature and of re- 
ligion") Paul and those with him had not come 
over to help us I 1 Paul was ever ready to preach 
the gospel at Rome (Rom. 1 : 15) ; but this mission- 
ary circuit was destined to include Philippi, Thes- 

*At that time "the ancestors of modern Europe and of us divided 
the forests of Central Europe with wild beasts." During later times 
the Crescent, contending with the Cross, subjugated that same Asia 
Minor and penetrated Europe to the Atlantic Ocean and threatened the 
extirpation of Christianity itself. What if there had been no Chris- 
tianity to extirpate! 

75 



LAW AND THE CROSS 

salonica, Berea, Athens, and Corinth, and be com- 
pleted without his seeing Rome. 

But here, while at Corinth, as if impatient of 
delay, he wrote the Epistle to the Romans and 
sent it by the hand of Phoebe, a Christian Deacon- 
ess at Cenchrea. 

How there came to be a Church at Rome, and 
by whom founded it is not now our interest to in- 
quire. It is certain that an infant Christian 
Church existed, and that St, Paul had not as yet 
been to Rome. 

In view of its importance as the political center 
of the world, and the possible future of a Christian 
Church at Rome, the then existing conditions de- 
manded just such a complete summary of the 
whole gospel as is presented in the Epistle. 

In addressing the churches he had himself 
founded it was not necessary to repeat in full and 
with the same emphasis the doctrines and ethics 
of Christianity. 2 But fortunately for the Church 
at Rome, and for us, a most comprehensive system 
of theology is furnished in this Epistle. It is an 

^his statement is true as a general rule; but in the case of the 
apostle conditions are exceptional. The amount of attention given to the 
cross in each Epistle from Romans to Hebrews is remarkable. As if he 
would, identify each Church with the doctrines he had preached, he puts 
them in permanent form and immortalizes the preaching of the cross 
in every letter. To the Corinthians he wrote, "I determined not to 
know anything among you save Jesus Christ and Him crucified." (1 
Cor. 1:17 and 2:2.) Then, as if to keep it ever before them as first 

76 



LAW AND THE CROSS 

inaugural, a platform,, and a complete epitome of 
apostolic doctrinal preaching. 

It Is a Law Book. 

Since the background of the gospel is the law, 
and justification is the theme of discussion, the 
book of Romans is a law book. 

Its terms are law terms. The argument fol- 
lows legal precedents in due form and logical or- 
der. It begins with the righteousness (justice) of 
GJ-od. Then proceeds with an awful indictment 
against sin and sinners. In extenuation of human 
guilt it exhausts every plea known to legal prac- 
tice. Then it arraigns the whole world as guilty 
and under the judgment of God. "Therefore by 
the deeds of the law shall no flesh be justified in 
His sight ; for by the law is the knowledge of sin," 
is the conclusion of that arraignment. It sounds 
like the deathknell of justification, but it agrees 
perfectly with the premises we have urged, viz., 
no pardon possible under a perfect administration 
of law. There must be some other way. Some 

in order and first in importance, he writes, "I delivered unto you first 
of all that which I also received; how that Christ died for our sins, 
according to the Scriptures; and that He was buried; and that He hath 
been raised on the third day according to the Scriptures." (1 Cor. 
15: 3.) A casual reading of any one of his Epistles will show that this 
dominant note is never omitted and that Christ crucified and risen found 
permanent place in every letter. The theme may be said to so saturate 
the work of the apostle that our "general rule" scarce applies. 

77 



LAW AND THE CROSS 

way that will maintain the righteousness (justice) 
of God and yet render pardon possible " without 
the law," that is, without any provision found in 
the law. 

We will now proceed to analyze St. Paul's ar- 
gument ; to show first that he recognizes the facts 
that we have recited, namely, that the legal bar to 
the pardon of sin resides in the just requirements 
of moral government, that is, in the righteousness 
of God. Second, that his method of approach is 
the legal and logical method, and his conclusions 
in full recognition of the premises we have laid 
down. We do not offer a commentary on the text 
as an exposition for its exegetical value ; and hence 
we keep in view only the main argument, and much 
that is incidental, or repeated only for the sake of 
emphasis is passed over or utilized indifferently. 

Analysis. 

The divine method of salvation " through the 
redemption that is in Christ Jesus" is the subject 
matter of the book; and St. Paul's method of 
treating it is expressed by the one word kighteous- 
ness, or justice. It is an a priori condition of all 
reasoning on the subject of remedies that some- 
thing is wrong; and very properly the nature of 
that wrong can only be determined by an appeal to 

78 



LAW AND THE CROSS 

some standard. If it be a physical wrong the 
standard must be physical ; if a moral or spiritual 
wrong, the standard must be of the same nature. 
In the treatment of the subject of salvation 
' l through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus ' ' 
the standard which St. Paul presumes is the 
"righteousness of God," and the objective sought 
is the righteousness, or rectification, of man. 

That God is righteous, and that conformity 
thereto is requisite to the salvation of man is 
therefore assumed. 3 From the exordium or intro- 
duction he gracefully glides into the great thesis, 
beginning properly at verse 16, "I am not ashamed 
of the gospel of Christ.' ' His first premise is 
found in the next verse, "for therein is revealed 

THE RIGHTEOUSNESS OF GOD." 4 



3 In the light of the philosophical negations of the twentieth cen- 
tury, that is a great assumption! But it agrees with the common sense 
of mankind and the opinions of the best thinkers of the ages. "Emer- 
son quotes the Welsh Triad as saying, 'God Himself can not procure 
good for the wicked.' Julius Muller, Dorner, Bothe, Schleirmacher, no 
less than Plato, Aristotle, and Socrates, assert that in the nature of 
things there can be no blessedness without holiness." — Joseph Cook, 
on "Theodore Parker," etc. 

4 "The righteousness of God." Dr. D. D. Whedon interprets this 
phrase, in Rom. 1:17 and 3:21, 22, to mean, "Not merely the right- 
eousness with which God is invested, but the righteousness with which 
through Christ He invests us. The latter is the radiant reflection from 
the former." The same word "righteousness" in 3:25, 26, he defines 
as "rectoral or governmental justice." If by implication the first is 
allowable, it by no means affects our use of it. Because if Bom. 1 : 17 
were entirely omitted, "the wrath of God revealed" in the next and 
succeeding verses amply justifies the use we make of the divine attribute 
of justice. If the point is, first, how to attain righteousness, and St. 

79 



LAW AND THE CROSS 

The righteousness of God! What can he do 
with that? Has it not unangeled angels and 
wrecked worlds? 

Nevertheless he begins with it and immediately 
adds, "For the wrath of God is revealed from 
heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteous- 
ness of men" (verse 18). 

In the next chapter, and here and there like a 
vivid flash the words law, wrath, and righteous- 
ness break into the argument. "Wrath against 
the day of wrath, and revelation of the righteous 
judgment of God." "Who will render to every 
man according to his works." "For as many as 
have sinned without the law shall also perish with- 
out the law, and as many as have sinned under the 
law shall be judged by the law." "The doers of 
the law shall be justified ... in the day when 
God shall judge the secrets of men according to 
my gospel by Jesus Christ." 

There is no mistaking such terms. The right- 
eousness of God, the requirements of divine jus- 
tice demand the punishment of the guilty. 

Two things are assured, namely : First, a rec- 

Paul here — 1: 17 — indicates God's method, and hence calls it "the right- 
eousness of God," we admit the fact that it truly is so: But that thus 
early in the discussion St. Paul meant to use the phrase in that sense 
rather than in the general sense of the words, we are not quite con- 
vinced. They seem to us to be stronger the other way. However, as 
this interpretation assumes just what St. Paul aims to prove, viz., that 
God has such a method of rectification for man, we do not object. 

80 



LAW AND THE CROSS 

ognition of the very ground we have assumed ; sec- 
ond, the apostle's method of approaching the sub- 
ject makeis it plain that the principles involved are 
legal principles. 

He does not approach the subject of "the re- 
demption which is in Christ Jesus" (the atone- 
ment) as some do. That is, by utterly ignoring 
the legal principles involved. 

St. Paul faces the awful problem and grapples 
with the terrible realities of "the righteousness 
of God," "the wrath of God," the ill deserts of 
sin, the law, and the judgment day. 

First in order and first in importance he lays 
right hold of the justice which in a moral govern- 
ment, perfect in its constitution and perfect in its 
administration, demands the execution of penalty 
and bars the prerogative of pardon; and he 
grounds the need of an atonement on the just re- 
quirements of law. 

What he does not do is as significant as what 
he does. He does not flatter his readers by as- 
suming that the status of mankind is such that the 
rectification of sinners may be effected by the per- 
sistent emulation of Christ as a good example. 

He does not first lay hold of the divine love as 
the moving cause of redemption: which it truly 
is. Nor does he base the pardon of sin upon the 
6 81 



LAW AND THE CROSS 

divine prerogative, nor repentance and reforma- 
tion (good works) nor parental tenderness, etc. 

His method of approach is the legal method; 
and those who discard any view of the atonement 
which primarily views it from a legal and forensic 
standpoint mnst reckon with St. Paul's example: 
both as to the method of his argument and as to 
the argument itself. Some other method may be 
popular, but it is not Pauline, and if we ignore 
these grave facts and climb up some other way we 
must challenge apostolic authority and break with 
the New Testament. 

An advocate of an atonement which was based 
on the expediency of a good example, or its moral 
influence only, instead of beginning with the right- 
eous wrath of Almighty God, would shun such 
terms as are employed by St. Paul by as much as 
the space of a celestial diameter. 

St. Paul's legal method is further evidenced 
by the fact that in his indictment of a guilty world 
he takes up and examines all the ordinary legal 
pleas in extenuation of human guilt before pass- 
ing to the final arraignment. Not in literal, formal 
order ; that is merely a matter of arbitrary taste. 
His is the oratorical order, and the legal argument 
is made the more climacteric and impressive. 



82 



LAW AND THE CEOSS 

Pleas in Extenuation. 

Fiest: On the Ground of Innocence. It 
needs no argument to prove that God may be just 
and justify the innocent Let innocence be pre- 
sumed and every principle of right stands ready 
with a vindication. The whole question turns 
upon guilt or innocence, and justification is only 
a term by which we announce the latter. 

But St. Paul does not base his doctrine of 
Justification upon the ground of innocence. The 
burden of the first two chapters is "against all 
ungodliness and unrighteousness of men." Prov- 
ing "both! Jews and Gentiles that they are all un- 
der sin. " " There is none righteous, no, not one. ? ' 
" For all have sinned and come short of the glory 
of God." 

Second: On the Ground of Non- Accounta- 
bility? Or Ignorance? 

We may reasonably presume that either of 
these should be entitled to some palliation, and if 
the apostle makes any concession here it would 
harmonize with the requirements of law. 

While ignorance is no justification for the vio- 
lation of law in general, in moral equity it may 
be ; and it applies fully so far as the principles we 
have in hand are concerned. 

83 



LAW AND THE CROSS 

Can the sinner plead ignorance? St. Paul 
takes another view of it. He says, "that which 
may be known of God is manifest to them; for 
God hath shewed it unto them." "For the invis- 
ible things of Him are clearly seen. ' ' " When they 
knew God, they glorified Him not as God. ' ' 

The whole catalogue of alleged wickedness 
charges criminal intent, " maliciousness,' ' "ma- 
lignity. ' ' " They did not like to retain God in their 
knowledge" (Rom, 1:19, 20, 21, 28 and 29). 

Third : Is It Upon Mitigating Circumstances 
extenuating the guilt or justifying the course pur- 
sued? Are men under some fatal necessity com- 
pelling them to sin? 

We find men justifying themselves on these 
grounds, but the apostle says "they are without 
excuse. ' ' 

To cover his answers to this specification would 
require us to quote almost the whole of the first 
two chapters and half of the third. Let it suffice 
that no conceivable plea in extenuation of human 
sin escapes his notice, and keeping the law steadily 
in view he concludes with a paragraph to which 
we call special attention: "Now we know that 
what things soever the law saith, it speaketh, to 
them that are under the law; that every mouth 
may be stopped, and all the world may be brought 

84 



LAW AND THE CROSS 

under the judgment of G-od : because by the works 
of the law shall no flesh be justified in His sight. ' ' 

Fourth: On the Ground of Expiation. Is 
it not possible that the guilty, by enduring the pen- 
alty, may cancel the legal obligation and thus at- 
tain that justification which until then is with- 
held? 

The demands of law require either obedience 
to the precept or endurance of the penalty. Either 
of these will secure the dignity of the law, and one 
or the other is imperative. 

If the precept is obeyed, "the doers of the law 
shall be justified" (chap. 2:13). And is it not 
equally clear that if the precept is disobeyed, and 
in lieu of it the penalty suffered, that the crime is 
expiated, and the criminal thereafter stands justi- 
fied in the sight of the law? 

There can be no doubt of this ; for the law can 
reach no farther than its penalty, and the execu- 
tion of the penalty is a full legal equivalent for 
the required obedience to its precept. 

Should any supposed penalty fall short of this, 
exact justice would affirm that the penalty was in- 
adequate and not of sufficient value or severity to 
offset a lack of obedience to the precept. 

Both stand on the same sanctions and are legal 
equivalents. Therefore if it can be presumed that 

85 



LAW AND THE CROSS 

the sinner has suffered the penalty he will reoc- 
oujpy the place of innocence, or be legally justified. 

In common parlance it is sometimes said of one 
who has suffered for a capital offense that "he 
expiated his crime on the gallows.' ' We mean 
that law has now no more quarrel with him. 

The penalty executed, there remains no legal 
principle that is not satisfied. If a criminal is in- 
carcerated for a term of years, and having served 
his sentence he returns to freedom, he occupies the 
same legal status which he did before the com- 
mission of his crime, and the same as that of a 
law-abiding citizen. Abiding by the penalty is the 
same legally as abiding by the precept. It will 
not do to cite attainders, as in England, or certain 
deprivations of elective franchise as customary 
with us in the United States ; for admitting these 
they are but parts of the penalty, and the whole 
of legal exaction is not suffered until the whole 
penalty is suffered. 5 

That obedience to the precept and endurance of 
the penalty are legal equivalents is expressed in 
the definition which we "tentatively" adopted at 
the outset, viz., Law is a rule of action prescribed 

B Observe we are not here applying these facts to the divine gov- 
ernment. The instances are employed merely to show that a penalty is 
not exhausted by the endurance of a part of it. Legal equivalents are 
not moral equivalents. We compare like things with like, which is per- 
fectly legitimate. 

86 



LAW AND THE CROSS 

by a superior power which the inferior is bound to 
obey or suffer the penalty of disobedience; thus 
expressing an alternative. 

Therefore is it not possible that the guilty, by 
enduring the just penalty for sin, may cancel the 
legal obligation and thus attain justification f 

In the second chapter, verses 6 and 7, we read, 
"Who will render to every man according to his 
deeds: To them who by patient continuance in 
well doing seek for glory and honor and immortal- 
ity, eternal life," Here the apostle seems to ex- 
cept from those who are condemned a certain 
class ; but he proceeds to declare that there are no 
such persons— "No, not one." "They are all 
gone out of the way." "All have sinned." The 
eternal life premised would be the award of the 
righteous, but "there is none righteous, no, not 
one. ' ' The question must then apply to the condi- 
tion of the guilty. Is there one word in the whole 
thesis that admits the possibility of human expia- 
tion? What future is anticipated for a single one 
of "the whole world?" 

His reference to the future is this, ' c Treasurest 
up unto thyself wrath against the day of wrath 
and revelation of the righteous judgment of God" 
(Rom. 2:5). Not "paying off the old score," but 
treasuring it up— wrath vs. wrath. 

87 



LAW AND THE CROSS 

However others may regard the possibility of 
enduring the imposed penalty in this life or the 
next, St. Paul writes as if violated law knew no re- 
versal of penalty forever. 

The award of righteousness is eternal life ; and 
by a parity of reasoning we must interpret the 
penalty for sin on the same plane, that is, eternal 
death. 

The terms employed, "judgment of God" (re- 
peatedly), "Wrath of God," "Indignation and 
wrath," "tribulation and anguish upon every soul 
that doeth evil," culminate with the announce^- 
ment, Rom. 2:16, "In the day when God shall 
judge the secrets of men by Jesus Christ accord- 
ing to my gospel." 

Previously he has repudiated "the works of 
the law," and now the whole field is swept clean of 
every possible plea in extenuation, leaving no 
room for any possible human expiation for sin. 

The inclusive "upon every soul that doeth 
evil," and the exclusive "noi, not one righteous," 
and the comprehensive "all have sinned and the 
whole world under the judgment of God, ' ' renders 
legal justification impossible and the penalty ab- 
solute and universal. 6 

"Rom. 2:12. "As many as have sinned without law shall also 
perish without law." The apostle makes sure that none escape. Those 
not under the levitical law are overtaken by that eternal rule of right 
which is grounded in the righteousness of God, and thus perish by that 
law. 

88 



CHAPTER VII. 

ROMANS CONCLUDED. PAEDON MADE POSSIBLE BY 
THE PROPITIATION OF CHRIST. A LEGAL EQUIV- 
ALENT OF THE PENALTY PROVIDED. 

"But Now" 

3 : 21 The righteousness of God without the law is 
manifested, being witnessed by the law and 
the prophets; 

22 Even the righteousness of God, which is by 
faith of Jesus Christ unto all and upon all 
that believe : for there is no difference : 

23 For all have sinned, and come short of the 
glory of God ; 

24 Being justified freely by His grace through 
the redemption that is in Christ Jesus: 

25 Whom God hath set forth to be a propitiation 
through faith in His blood, to declare His 
righteousness for the remission of sins that 
are past, through the forbearance of God ; 

26 To declare, I say, at this time His righteous- 
ness: that He might be just and the Justifier 
of him which believeth in Jesus. 

89 



LAW AND THE CROSS 

"But now." Here is the great transition, the 
pivotal phrase in the apostle's argument. Instead 
of coming to a full stop at the word guilty, like 
some great train turned by a switch, it goes thun- 
dering through to a different destination. 

The problem solved, and the one we have pre- 
sumed to discuss is this : How can a just God jus- 
tify the ungodly ? 

Observe: Justification is a legal term. 1 And 
the apostle in turning to a remedy that will render 
justification possible in the perfect moral govern- 
ment of God begins with the same great legal 
premise as before, viz., "the righteousness of 
God." 

Four times in the paragraphs above quoted 
"the righteousness of God" burdens the argu- 
ment. The same legal principles employed in the 
first part of the argument are embodied in this. 

He does not build a theory of the atonement on 
new premises. 

Far from it. The righteousness oe God must 

^'Justification. ('Some form of the verb Slk<u6o>). A forensic 
term equivalent to acquittal and opposed to condemnation; in an apolo- 
getic sense it is often synonymous with vindication or freeing from un- 
just implication or blame." 

"This term in theological usage is employed to designate the 
judicial act of God by which He pardons all the sins of the sinner who 
believes in Christ, receiving him into favor, and regarding him as 
relatively rfghteous, notwithstanding his past actual unrighteousness. 
Hence justification and the remission or forgiveness of sin relate to one 
and the same act of God." ilcClintock & Strong. 

90 



LAW AND THE CEOSS 

be manifested, declared, and propitiated in the 
blood of Christ. 

St. Paul's breadth of comprehension is seen in 
the way he combines belief in Christ, with the 
principles embodied in the atonement. But now, 
for the sake of clearness, suppose we eliminate 
every related idea and trace only the legal and 
the redemptive ideas in the statement. 

His conclusion would then amount to this, 
namely, with the background of a world's guilt 
and under the righteous law of God there is no re- 
mission. But now, the righteousness of God is 
manifested by other means than the execution of 
the penalty on a guilty world. That is, through 
the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, whom God 
hath set forth to be a propitiation in His blood, to 
declare His righteousness. Not in time past nor 
in the day of judgment, but at this time to declare 
His righteousness ; that He might be just and the 
Justifier of the ungodly. 

This then is the atonement. The death of 
Christ is either the penalty suffered, or it is the 
legal equivalent therefor, a substitute for the pen- 
alty. 

La either view, the atonement of Christ comes 
to have a meaning exalted as the righteousness of 
God and deep as the desolate curse of sin. A the- 

91 



LAW AND THE CROSS 

ory of the atonement which makes the death of 
Christ merely incidental to His mission— a martyr- 
dom—and its chief utility that of "a moral influ- 
ence," finds no sanction in the awful depths of 
such truth. The closing sentence, "that He might 
be just and the Justifier of him which believeth in 
Jesus,' ' is worthy the blast of an angel's trumpet. 
Every gospel trumpet that does not chord with 
this gives an uncertain sound. "To declare His 
righteousness that God might be just and the Jus- 
tifier of him which believeth in Jesus," is God's 
answer to the question of Necessity. An atone- 
ment proper, grounded deep in the organic struc- 
ture of moral government, vindicating the divine 
administration in extending pardon to the guilty 
millions of His accountable creatures, and without 
which pardon is forever impossible in the perfect 
moral government of God. 

It is the great substantial basis of the Chris- 
tian religion and the greatest theme of religious 
thought. Break down the certainty of such an 
atonement and Christianity crumbles to the level 
of an ethical philosophy, bereft of the wisdom and 
the power of God. It is only thus that we can ex- 
plain the sacrificial types and the expiatory terms 
so common to the Scriptures. 

"By His stripes we are healed." "On Him 
92 



LAW AND THE CROSS 

was laid the iniquity of us all." "He made His 
soul ail offering for sin, " ' ' He died for our sins. ' ' 
"He tasted death for every man." These and 
like sentences from the Word, and the many sim- 
ilar incisive utterances of apostolic preaching are 
keyed to the same great truth, and it is not within 
the power of human speech to make them more em- 
phatic and impressive. Familiar texts like tunes 
often run through the mind by automatic rhythm 
without so much as a courteous recognition; but 
if the reader will look any one of the following 
squarely in the face he will recognize the principle 
for which the apostle contends. 

"Who was delivered for our offenses and 
raised again for our justification" is the closing 
verse of the 4th chapter of this epistle. "There- 
fore being justified by faith we have peace with 
God through our Lord Jesus Christ," is the first 
verse of the 5th chapter, and really the climax of 
his argument. It indicates the open door through 
which we enter experimentally into the economy 
of grace which God has established. Hence the 
apostle adds, "By whom we have access into this 
grace wherein we stand and rejoice in hope of the 
glory of God," etc. Thus by an easy and logical 
transition, from the atonement as the ground of 
salvation, he proceeds to unfold his gospel and 

93 



LAW AND THE CROSS 

urge its acceptance. He began by introducing a 
gospel of which he was not ashamed, and closes 
with this magnificent peroration: "Now to Him 
that is of power to establish you according to my 
gospel, and the preaching of Jesus Christ, accord- 
ing to the revelation of the mystery which hath 
been kept in silence through times eternal, but now 
is manifested, and by the Scriptures of the proph- 
ets, according to the commandment of the eternal 
God, is made known to all the nations unto obedi- 
ence of faith : to the only wise God, through Jesus 
Christ, to whom be glory forever. Amen." 

Half the capital of a loose liberalism is to di- 
vert attention from the New Testament ; but until 
you have destroyed apostolic authority we refuse 
to be diverted, and add herewith a few passages 
only, knowing that they are so familiar that more 
would not be read. 

"In due time Christ died for the ungodly" 
(Rom. 5:6). "When we were enemies we were 
reconciled to God by the death of His Son" (ver. 
10). "In whom we have redemption through His 
blood" (Eph. 1:7; Col. 1:14). "Who gave Him- 
self a ransom for all " (1 Tim. 11 : 6) . "So Christ 
was once offered to bear the sins of many" (Heb. 
9:28). 

The Epistle to the Hebrews, another apostolic 
94 



LAW AND THE CROSS 

book, complete in itself, and surveying the whole 
ground of redemption through Christ, bears the 
same testimony, and if subjected to analysis sup- 
ports the same conclusion. 2 

Our chief embarassment in treating the subject 
grows out of the abundance of materials, the vo- 
luminousness of texts, and the perfect opulence of 
words, phrases, figures, and illustrations; while 
the usual answer to it all is an evasion. 

We conclude, therefore, that the atonement of 
Christ was imperatively required to render possi- 
ble what in the nature of divine government was 
o the rwis e imp o s sible. 

That the pardon of sin, and the whole economy 
of grace (favor) which God has established for the 
salvation of sinful men is grounded on the atone- 
ment. That Christ, our ransom, suffered the pen- 
alty, or the legal equivalent for the penalty, to de- 
clare His righteousness, that God might be just 
and the justifier of him which believeth in Jesus. 

The problem is solved, and Christ is the end of 
the law for righteousness to every one that be- 
lieveth. It is the negative side of the atonement. 
The sine qua non (without which not), and an- 
swers perfectly the question of legal necessity, 

a See Bishop Merrill's Treatise on "Atonement," in which such an 
anaylsis is found. 

95 



LAW AND THE CROSS 

without trenching on the realm of mystery or go- 
ing beyond the depth of an intelligent apprecia- 
tion of the fundamental principles of moral law: 
A legal necessity growing out of the just require- 
ments of a perfect moral government in which 
pardon without an atonement is forever impos- 
sible. 

Mysteey. 

Is some friendly critic ready to ask, Is this the 
only reason for the atonement? Where then is 
the glorious mystery of redemption? We reply, 
there are innumerable and affirmative reasons and 
motives, moral and spiritual. 

Eeasons growing out of the infinite love of 
God and His condescension, the lost state of man, 
and the perils and interests of moral government. 

There are profound mysteries, and problems, 
too. Some of these will appear when we come to 
study the nature of the atonement. 

The salutary ends achieved, the new relations 
sustained, the intelligences concerned, and desti- 
nies effected, give rise to problems which only di- 
vine revelation can solve ; while vials poured out, 
trumpets sounded, thunders sealed, and other 
metaphors and symbols veil the awful retributions 
of sin and the unutterable glories of redemption 
in time and eternity. 

96 



LAW AND THE CROSS 

The Book of Revelation is the apocalypse of 
Jesus, and its mysteries concerning earth and time 
and eternity reaching beyond the galaxies and into 
the infinities belong to the "glorious mystery of 
redemption, ' ' and to the ' ' slain Lamb. ' ' 

Do we then make void the mystery of the atone- 
ment? God forbid: yea, we establish the mystery 
upon an immutable foundation— the just require- 
ments of a perfect moral government. 

We have attempted to clear the approaches by 
proving that God can not deny Himself and ex- 
tend pardon to sinners in violation of a principle, 
which is not a mystery. 

What we deprecate is the presumption that ig- 
nores or discourages the study of the atonement 
under the pretext that it is a mystery beyond our 
comprehension; while that branch of the subject 
which most concerns the masses of mankind, 
namely, its legal necessity, is not an insurmount- 
able difficulty, but one that can be rationally ex- 
plained to the comprehension of an open mind. 

A duty dictated by the most urgent motives, 
but often evaded by charging to the mystery of the 
atonement what actually belongs to the muddle of 
the student. 



97 



CHAPTER VIII. 

" FOR I SPEAK TO MEN WHO KNOW THE LAW."— Paul. 

Before we discuss the nature of the atonement 
further, lest one of those "trifling incongruities" 
which we have noted should be overlooked and in 
the end mar our contusions, it is necessary to de- 
vote a chapter to some controversial questions and 
relevant objections. 

Thus far we have not attempted to show how 
the death of Christ met the requirements of moral 
government, except as an answer to such question 
might be inferred. We have been engaged with 
the question of legal necessity, i. e., what in the 
nature of things rendered an atonement necessary 
to the pardon of sin? While the nature, extent, 
and mystery of the atonement has received but 
incidental attention. 

If we are asked a reason for such proportion- 
ate treatment, we reply, The living! The living! 

Outside of theological circles thinking men are 
not so much concerned with the doctrinal status 
of the atonement as to know why such a divine 

98 



LAW AND THE CROSS 

expedient was necessary. The nature of the atone- 
ment and its relative place in a doctrinal system 
does not so much concern their interest. But the 
question of necessity amounts to asking a reason 
for their duty in accepting Christ as Redeemer. 

To minds unprejudiced the question carries 
with it the motives of faith or unbelief, and if the 
significance of the atonement as a ground of sal- 
vation is swept away the question of necessity 
goes with it, and in logical sequence the impera- 
tive need of Christ as a personal Savior. 

Evasion of this question on the part of some 
evangelical teachers, and such an atonement as 
proffered by others, has been equivalent to a nega- 
tion, and thus motives that would constrain men 
are wanting. 

It is the work of an advocate, or an apostle, to 
enlighten the understanding, convince the judg- 
ment, rouse the conscience, and persuade the will ; 
and nothing in the vast field of religious thought 
affords such an appeal as the motives that brought 
the Son of Grod to the sufferings of the cross. 

Convince men of the unity of law, that eternal, 
immutable righteousness demands the punishment 
of sin, and that the same irrevocable law made an 
atonement necessary to the exercise of the prerog- 
ative of pardon, and it is not far to see that faith 

99 



LAW AND THE GROSS 

in Christ is equally imperative: that to reject 
Christ is to challenge that law and invite its pri- 
mary penalty upon the real offenders. 

The motives that led to the cross are measure- 
less, but if they were not of the character revealed 
in the New Testament they need not have been 
revealed. They might have been easily inferred. 
If the crucifixion was only an historic incident, 
and Christ died for the truth— instead of dying 
for sinners— we needed no such revelation as con- 
tained in the Scriptures to declare it. 

The apostles might have preached an ethical 
gospel; they might have said that Jesus died as 
a martyr : they might have treated the crucifixion 
as an historic incident, which the philosophy of 
history would explain (or left it to "the theory of 
evolution as an explanation of the history of liter- 
ature and of religion"), or they might have made 
the Incarnation the saving mystery of the gospel. 
But they did not! 

Their preaching was distinctively, signifi- 
cantly, and vehemently the "preaching of the 
cross." Why? Because heaven threw upon the 
cross a revelation, in the light of which the cross 
is seen to declare the righteousness of God, that 
God might be just and justify the ungodly. It is 
not a gospel that can be rationally explained with- 

100 



LAW AND .THE CEOSS 

out a revelation from God. St. Paul declares as 
much in Galatians 1: 11, 12: "But I certify you, 
brethren, that the gospel which was preached of 
me is not after man. For I neither received it of 
man, neither was I taught it, but by the revelation 
of Jesus Christ." All that the gospel is, over and 
above and beyond what it would have been if Jesus 
had died for the truth only, renders it the "wis- 
dom of God and the power of God to every one 
that believeth." And it is no wonder, then, if a 
theory of the atonement which is true to the New 
Testament is "to them that perish foolishness" 
(1 Cor. 1 : 18). We do well, therefore, to heed the 
Word that has made plain the fact that God's 
method of redemption does not commend itself to 
the wisdom of this world, ' ' But God has chosen the 
foolish things of the world to confound the wise" 
(ver. 27). 

The atonement, therefore, is something unique 
in the divine economy ; and it is one of the marks 
of genuineness if our theory of it is branded as 
barbarous or out of date. For, sure as it harmon- 
izes with that of the New Testament, it will carry 
enough of this odium— the offense of the cross, 
the reproach of Christ— to bear a resemblance. 
Lifted like a serpent is a figure Jesus Himself 
used, and it contains ai truth that goes deep into 

101 



LAW AND THE CROSS 

the significance of the cross. There are theories 
of the atonement not open to the criticism of being 
cither barbarous or ancient. 

One such put in logical syllogistic form would 
have for its first premise the statement that "the 
death of Christ was not an atonement for sin;" 
the second premise would recite the many salutary 
lessons of the cross, and the conclusion would be 
that the death of Christ was not a propitiation 
for the sins of the whole world, but anything else 
comprehended in the premises recited. 

With such a " theory' ' the question of neces- 
sity is quieted; buried under numerous plausible 
commendations with such exquisite taste and skill 
that it is the achievement of criticism to detect 
the utter absence of an atonement and distinguish 
it from Christianity. 

The atonement not a ground of salvation, not 
an imperative conditional provision of pardon, 
may be the product of an ingenuous erudition, but 
it contradicts the gospel, and belongs to that pov- 
erty of thought which takes no cognizance of the 
demerit of sin or the righteousness of God ; knows 
nothing of the merit of His person as "the image 
of the invisible Grod, ' ' and feels nothing of His in- 
finite love and condescension which tasted death 
for every man. 

102 



LAW AND THE GROSS 

Not so the Apostle Paul: for lie begins with; 
the justice of God, and with no flesh justified in his 
sight he ends with the judgment of God, thus lay- 
ing the ground for the atonement of Jesus Christ. 
With such premises and contusion there remains 
now nothing but either the penalty or a legal equiv- 
alent for the penalty. Viewed from the stand- 
point of St. Paul (and of the common sense of 
mankind) therefore the death of Jesus Christ wasi 
the suffered penalty, or it was substituted as si 
legal equivalent for the penalty, or it was not an 
atonement for the sins of the whole world. 



103 



CHAPTER IX. 

NECESSITY FOR AN ATONEMENT A LEGAL QUESTION 
REQUIRING LEGAL TREATMENT. 

It is highly important that we distinguish between 
questions that relate to the need of an atonement 
and to the legal necessity for its being provided. 
What it was, what it does, and what it was in- 
tended to achieve are questions apart from the 
necessity which made an atonement an imperative 
requisite to the pardon of sin. 

Love was the supreme motive that led to its 
provision: Sin the cause of its need: Salvation, 
with all the salutary benefits incidental to redemp- 
tion, was the comprehensive objective of the atone- 
ment of Jesus Christ. 

But the question which chiefly involves the le- 
gal aspects of the atonement faces, first, a condi- 
tion presumed to exist in the moral government 
of G-od, which will not admit of any provision for 
the salvation of a lost world until principles of 
righteousness are propitiated or satisfied, or made 
to harmonize with the exercise of the divine pre- 
rogative of pardon. 

104 



LAW AND THE CEOSS 

Those who will not hear of an atonement which 
has respect to the requirements of law seem to 
forget that sin is the transgression of the law, and 
that pardon remits the penalty which the law im- 
poses. Love itself is the end of the law. "The 
end of the commandment is love, out of a pure 
heart, and of a good conscience, and of faith un- 
feigned.' ' Law, faith, obedience, and love is the 
moral order ofthe divine government sought to be 
restored through our Lord Jesus Christ. Hence 
a redemptive method which ignores the fact of sin 
and the relation of love to law has no existence. 

A discussion of the causes and conditions that 
lead to the atonement, and an answer to the ques- 
tion of its necessity to the pardon of sin involves 
legal treatment because it is a legal question. Re- 
duced to its simplest form it amounts to this: 
First, "the law entered." "Thou shalt not" was 
the precept. Second, "all have sinned." Third, 
"shall surely die" is the penalty due. "But 
now" the justice of God is manifested without the 
execution of the penalty imposed by the law. How 
can this be without violating principles of right- 
eousness in the moral government of God? An- 
swer, i ' Through the redemption which is in Christ 
Jesus, whom God hath set forth to be a propitia- 
tion." 

105 



LAW AND THE CROSS 

Now let us hear the objector who would discuss 
an atonement without any regard to the question 
of law. 

He has a mountain to climb, and must approach 
it by a circuitous route. Ordinarily he begins by 
telling us of the great changes that have come 
over the religious thought of the century. Of the 
"decay" of orthodox conceptions, of the more 
modern view, of the enlarged perceptions of the 
divine fatherhood, the deeper ethical coloring that 
has been infused into our thoughts, and the more 
worthy notions of G-od and the redemptive work 
of Christ. 

Then he proceeds to clear the sky of old biblical 
imagry, and the rabbinical language of St. Paul 
and his Judaistic adherence, together with the in- 
fluence of his Romanized legal environment which 
had its effect in throwing the whole scheme into a 
forensic form. 

Then the preface is further adorned with a 
resume of the antiquated theories which we have 
outgrown. The theory of Origen, with a propi- 
tiation to the devil, we are not allowed to forget, 
while the commercial ideas of substitution, sordid 
associations of the market, and the rigid infer- 
ences of Calvinism, and the mechanical concep- 
tions of the universe administered as a law court 

106 



LAW AND THE CEOSS 

unworthy the benign and reverent notions of 
God. 

The brush goes along with the pencil, touching 
up here and there those dreadful conceptions that 
bulked so largely in the theology of that day; 
crude notions of the gospel of Christ, disgracefully 
inadequate; dreadful conceptions intolerable to 
contemplate ; the new view, the modern idea ; the 
better conception in the minds of thinking men ; an 
entirely different conception was dawning ; now we 
rarely hear, in the present day, such literal inter- 
pretations of the Pauline phraseology, etc. (These 
expletive phrases and complimentary terms are 
quotations. We furnish only the cement to bind 
them together.) 1 

Such prefatory argument, expanded into a 
treatise (and there are many) obviates the neces- 
sity of an appeal to the New Testament. 

The legal aspects of the atonement are simply 
ignored, and the New Testament phraseology suf- 
fers the rebuke of being outgrown. 

For instance, the following: " Until recently 

1 Shades of our fathers! If they could read these announcements, 
would they think we had unearthed new MSS. ? Hardly ; for they left 
us their libraries, and we find the same compliments and the same vein 
of new discoveries running clear back to Arianism. Old practitioners 
tell us that the science of medicine is the accumulated knowledge of 
the ages applied to the healing art. But what is theology! Those 
Athenians, who spent their time in nothing else but either to tell or 
to hear some new thing (described in brackets in the seventeenth chapter 
of Luke), would have made great theologians! 

107 



LAW AND THE CROSS 

it was customary to regard this mainly under the 
form of a legal transaction. God was the judge 
in a law court : Christ was the advocate in behalf 
of the accused: The atonement was a procedure 
by means of which the guilty were acquitted: 
While the claims of retributive justice were fully 
satisfied. M " The atonement is now regarded more 
as the personal reconciliation of God's disobedient 
children with their Father in heaven, and its pro- 
cess and results are considered in a more personal 
way and with more regard to ethical issues." 2 

Just how such a definition of the atonement 
can be made intelligible, or be related to that sub- 
ject, while it describes something else, is beyond 
our comprehension. But the eff acement of all the 
legal aspects is clear. 

A lawyer's answer to all such subterfuge would 
be, "Yes, 'tis a pity we must all appear before 
the judgment seat of Christ ; but that 's the book." 
Such retort is more than facetious: For, aside 
from the facts as to St. Paul's choice of legal terms 
and the forensic character of his argument, the au- 
thority of Christ for that judgment scene is sanc- 
tion enough. 

The objection which assumes to criticise the 
legal treatment of this subject "because it savors 

2 W. F. Adeny. "A Century's Progress," p. 130. 

108 



LAW AND THE CKOSS 

too much] of a court procedure," while aimed at 
the argument strikes the authorship of the New 
Testament, and a better compliment it would be 
hard to pay. 

If, therefore, a view of the atonement savors 
too much of the Pauline method of presenting it, 
and too much of the adjudicature which the Savior 
proclaimed, the objector must bear the onus of it. 

We will be glad if our treatment of the atone- 
ment does not savor too little of such procedure. 
If it did there might be room for just criticism; 
but by being too much like that raises the query as 
to whether or not it is too much like the truth. 

We are not responsible for the words and 
terms employed, nor for the doctrine itself. We 
do not assume to improve on these terms, but if 
possible to interpret something of their meaning; 
and the objection we make to some other views 
of the atonement of Christ is that they are totally 
unlike that, ' ' standing in no discoverable relation 
to the New Testament." (See Preface.) 

The effort to belittle or render coarse and un- 
worthy a. doctrinal statement is not weighty if the 
logic of it goes far enough to include the author- 
ity of the Scriptures. 

If it has any ground to stand on it must be put 
in terms that do not involve a challenge of the 

109 



LAW AND THE CROSS 

AVord itself, else it deserves no consideration. In 
this particular instance the "court procedure" 
is asserted, and no objection to a court procedure 
can stand except as a denial of the authority of the 
Scriptures. 

Then the argument addresses itself to another 
subject outside the question of an atonement, 
namely, the question of the authority of the New 
Testament. A denial of which authority cancels 
the demand for any atonement, except such as is 
compatible with the methods and interpretations 
of Rationalism— or blank infidelity. 

Objections to a "legal view" of the atone- 
ment are usually put in such coarse terms and in 
such contrast with the metaphysical finesse of the 
thing substituted as modern, that we have no trou- 
ble to understand them. In one instance at hand 
we read that this view represents the Supreme 
Ruler as a "Justice of the Peace." How clear 
that is ! How unlike the words, words, words that 
lead us through pages and pages of book after 
book in search of an ethical atonement that is 
modern! It reminds one, part of whose rural 
youth was spent on a farm, of the fact that when 
one is lost in the woods he invariably travels in a 
circle, and happy is the man who comes out where 
he went in. A compass, or a New Testament, 

110 



LAW AND THE CROSS 

would be an invaluable guide. The law of gravi- 
tation requires the needle to point north, and law, 
grounded in the righteousness with which G-od is 
invested, demands obedience or penalty or "pro- 
pitiation' ' as a substitute for the penalty. Neither 
atonement nor "ethics" has any reality or sub- 
stance apart from law. And neither exegetes nor 
apostles nor modern theologians "nor any other 
creature" can unmake the order and constitution 
of nature, nor separate the idea of atonement from 
that of law. As well try to separate logic from 
the laws of thought, or the day of judgment from 
the "Judge of all the earth." Either is an aban- 
donment of the subject and the substitution of 
another predicate, the nature of which will be all 
the better if veiled in the obscurity of a disquisi- 
tion that renders it incomprehensible. 

It may be said in reply to this, that St. Paul 
does repudiate the law when he declares, "But 
now the righteousness of God without the law is 
manifested. ' ' 

We reply, if St. Paul means the law of Moses 
the meaning is clear. But granting that he refers 
to the higher law — the rule of right that obtains in 
moral government— he can not intend to ignore or 
repudiate that law. Dr. Adam Clarke interprets 
the phrase to mean, "Without any right or claim 

111 



LAW AND THE CROSS 

which might result from obedience to the law." 
This is evidently trne so far as it goes, and in 
keeping with the previous argument. 

It is likewise capable of larger meaning, viz., 
without either obedience to the precept or the exe- 
cution of the penalty. But granting so much as 
that, the law is not thereby ignored or set aside. 
Jesus Christ is set forth a propitiation. The law, 
which is grounded in the righteousness of God, 
demanding obedience or penalty, instead of being 
ignored or repealed is met by the death of Jesus 
Christ. In other words, the righteousness of 
God, sought to be manifested by the execution of 
the penalty, is manifested in another way, namely, 
by His death. 

That law still obtains. His death substituted 
its penalty only for the remission of sins that are 
past, while the requirements of obedience to its 
precepts will run on forever. 

St. Paul has anticipated this expression "with- 
out the law" in the preceding chapter (ver. 12), 
"For as many as have sinned without law shall 
also perish without law." Assuming the term 
"without law" to mean without the law of Moses, 
which is the evident meaning, then by what law do 
they perish? It must be that they perish in obedi- 
ence to the demand of some law. What law can 

112 



LAW AND THE CROSS 

that be but the rule of right which finds its ground! 
and sanction in the righteousness of God? The 
Ten Commandments receive their highest sanction 
from the all inclusive law of righteousness, which 
neither Christ nor His apostles assumed to repeal. 
In the propitiation received by faith both are vin- 
dicated, and hence the apostle concludes, "Do we 
then make void the law 1 God forbid ! Yea, we es- 
tablish the law." 

The next (4th) chapter is given to a discus- 
sion of faith in its relation to Christ; but in the 
last verse, returning to the prof oundest depths of 
the legal problem, and laying bare the foundation 
upon which justification is to rest, he declares con- 
cerning Christ (verse 25), "Who was delivered 
for our offenses and raised again for our justifica- 
tion. " 

With the first verse of the nest chapter (5th) 
the apostle begins to sum up the whole of his 
previous argument. It is the therefore of all 
previous data, and embraces every element of 
the previous conclusions. "Therefore being jus- 
tified by faith we have peace with God, through 
our Lord Jesus Christ." 

This is the capstone that crowns the legal su- 
perstructure, and with every legal requirement 
met we have access to all that was previously 
8 113 



LAW AND THE CEOSS 

barred by our disobedience. Hence lie continues, 
' ' By whom also we have access by faith into this 
grace wherein we stand and rejoice in the hope of 
the glory of God. ' ' 

After this St. Paul fairly revels in conclusions, 
wherefores, and therefores. "For when we were 
yet without strength, in due time Christ died for 
the ungodly." "For, if when we were enemies, 
we were reconciled to God by the death of His 
Son." "Wherefore as by one man sin entered 
. . . but not as the offense so is the free gift." 
"Therefore as by the offense of one judgment 
came . . . even so by the righteousness of one 
the free gift came." 

How the great argument rises! From prem- 
ises laid in the first chapter, step by step the 
great apostle conducts us through to that climac- 
tic Eighth of Eomans, which he closes with a pero- 
ration that has never been excelled. Beginning 
with verse 32 : "He that spared not His own Son, 
but delivered Him up for us all, how shall He not 
with Him also freely give us all things 1 Who shall 
lay anything to the charge of God's elect 1 It is 
God that Justine th. Who is he that condemneth? 
It is Christ that died, yea rather that is risen 
again, who is even at the right hand of God, who 
also maketh intercession for us. Who shall sepa- 

114 



LAW AND THE CEOSS 

rate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation, 
or distress, or persecution, or famine, or naked- 
ness, or peril, or sword? 

"As it is written, For thy sake we are killed all 
the day long; we are accounted as sheep for the 
slaughter. Nay, in all these things we are more 
than conquerors through Him that loved us. For 
I am persuaded that neither death, nor life, nor 
angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor things 
present, nor things to come, nor height, nor depth, 
nor any other creature shall be able to separate 
us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus 
our Lord." 

Let us thank God that in the order of His prov- 
idence this learned tent maker, this greatest the- 
ologian of the centuries, had not seen Rome when 
he wrote this epistle ; and that the field was new 
and strategic, demanding a whole gospel ; that no 
previous residence and ministry had absorbed his 
best thoughts, and so far utilized his preaching as 
to embarrass a repetition of great fundamentals. 
Thank God that in Eomans we have a complete 
summary of apostolic preaching, matured by long 
experience and reduced to the compass of a single 
treatise by this master of logical arts. 

The closing paragraphs are devoted to the eth- 
ical duties inherent in the Christian system, and to 

115 



LAW AND THE CROSS 

personal greetings. But the epistle would not be 
Pauline if it did not close with a climax, or a bene- 
diction, that strikes again the keynote of his gos- 
pel, like the last stroke of a pro-cathedral bell, 
rolling its good tidings out over the world with a 
wide welcome, in these last words: "Now to Him 
that is able to establish you according to my gos- 
pel and the preaching of Jesus Christ, according 
to the revelation of the mystery which hath been 
kept in silence through times eternal, but now is 
manifested, and by the Scriptures of the prophets, 
according to the commandment of the eternal G-od, 
is made known to all ihe nations unto obedience of 
faith : to the only wise God, through Jesus Christ, 
to whom be glory forever. Amen." 



116 



CHAPTER X. 

LOVE AND LAW 

Any view of the cross which represents the death 
of Christ as an appeasement of the personal anger 
of God, and hence the atonement the cause of His 
love for sinners, would contradict itself by the ad- 
mission that ' ' God so loved the world that He gave 
His only begotten Son" to die for their redemp- 
tion. 

An absurdity too palpable to find place in any 
theory ever taught ; and any objection against such 
theory is a gratuitous waste of time if it goes 
farther than a flat denial. 

Nor does any theory of which we ever read 
make use of statements that by any fair inference 
could be construed as teaching such an incongru- 
ity. And yet, strange to say, the most common 
objection to a vicarious atonement is aimed at 
that kind of a theory. 

If the objector would reverse his order, and 
think before he objects, it might occur to him that 
the absurdity of presuming that the atonement 

117 



LAW AND THE CKOSS 

was the cause of the love of God and not the love 
of God the motive that provided the atonement, 
was so rudely plain that he must have been mis- 
taken in his interpretation of what was meant to 
be taught. 

It is one of the primary rules of criticism that 
an author must be allowed to be consistent with 
himself; whereas in this case the inconsistency is 
announced in the thing premised. 

Neither the New Testament nor the advocates 
of a vicarious atonement furnish any warrant for 
such an imbecility, nor do they sanction a thing 
which on its face contradicts itself or the com- 
mon sense of mankind, however persistent the ef- 
fort to make it appear. 

Between truth and error there is often but one 
step, and an enemy will always take that step to 
caricature or exaggerate the truth. Here as nor- 
where else in the realm of Christian doctrine the 
temptation is great, because the opportunity is af- 
forded by the very terms employed. 

It might be consistent for a devil worshiper to 
represent God as the implacable enemy of man- 
kind who could only be appeased by the blood of 
His Son ; and there might be some excuse for the 
ignorant and depraved to abase these terms and 
caricature the doctrine of a vicarious atonement, 

118 



LAW AND THE CEOSS 

and call it therefore a barbarism and a relic of the 
ages of cruelty. But for men whose pretentious 
scholarship is far above such crass ignorance there 
is no excuse whatever. They know better. So 
much better that they are adepts at the art of mak- 
ing fine distinctions, in the realm of scientific Bib- 
lical criticism. The mildest designation with 
which such misrepresentations can be charged 
legally is not "heresy, ' ? but; ' ' libel ; ' ' because when 
they knew that no orthodox doctor, or evangelical 
teacher in college, church, or Sunday school, ever 
taught such sentiments they treated them and the 
New Testament as if they did. 

When that kind of an atonement which no the- 
ologian ever taught and which St. Paul never 
taught is urged against the Pauline doctrine as 
cruel and barbarous, the objector is placing him- 
self in company with a class of men of a former 
age who had the candor to avow themselves as 
infidels. 

In their defense it can be said that light was 
dim 1 and truth was scarce. There was little gen- 
eral knowledge of the Scriptures, and they were in- 
fluenced by false notions of Christianity ; but now, 
when theology has come to be an exact science, 
and every truth falls by classification into its 
proper place, theological specialists should be held 

119 



LAW AND THE CEOSS 

to strict account for the use tliey make of their 
materials. 

We mean hy these strictures more perhaps 
than appears on the surface, but what we shall say 
later with regard to methods will make our mean- 
ing plain. 

In our search for reasons nothing can be ad- 
mitted as true which would do violence to the com- 
mon sense, or to those fundamental principles of 
right and righteousness that belong to the immu- 
tability of God. He certainly wants no motive to 
render Him propitious. But to render pardon 
possible in strict conformity to His justice, and the 
rights and interests of all His intelligent creatures, 
some manifestation of that justice is required 
which will render it consistent for Him to exer- 
cise His beneficent disposition toward those guilty 
of sin. 

The righteousness of G-od and the love of God 
are not more congruous than the righteousness of 
God and the wrath of God. The same disposition 
that loves holiness must hate sin. That God can 
both love and hate at the same time is no contra- 
diction; but the same holy disposition addressed 
to different and opposite things. He loves the 
soul— every soul— and any soul in rebellion or 
alienated from God by sin can not be regarded by 

120 



LAW AND THE CROSS 

infinite righteousness with the same complacent 
benignity as one in loving and loyal obedience to 
His holy law. 

Any other view of the character of the Divine 
One would render His being something other than 
a holy person. It might comport with the panthe- 
istic ideas of the "Absolute," but not with the 
Supreme God of the Christian Scriptures. 

St. Paul says the wrath of God is revealed 
from heaven against all ungodliness ; and no; mat- 
ter what theory of the atonement we adopt, if we 
accept the authority of the New Testament as the 
word of God, it is as much the duty of one class 
of thinkers as another to reconcile the wrath of 
God to the love of God. 

To our thinking, there is no contradiction, but 
absolute concord, and there is no incongruity in 
supposing that God hates sin. 

Though He be a God of love, His love is right- 
eous love and His wrath is righteous wrath. We 
mortals have so much of the hydrophobia of mad- 
ness in our kind of anger that it is sometimes 
difficult for us to credit God with a wrath that 
is holy wrathj and not a kind of personal resent- 
ment, while a wrath that would weep and bleed 
and die for sinners is hard to understand. 

Doubtless we, in view of our limitations, can 
121 



LAW AND THE CROSS 

only form limited conceptions of any truth about 
God; and the wrath of God is a subject of such 
vast and solemn import that it holds for us a 
measureless meaning. Viewed in relation to the 
love of God which gave His only begotten Son, 
who gave Himself to suffer and die, it is hard 
to understand and harder to explain lest we ex- 
plain it away. Whereas, instead of the contra- 
diction which seems to exist between the wrath 
and the love of God, it is the contrast that ren- 
ders the cross so unspeakably great as an exponent 
of the love of God. We can only rise to a just 
conception of its glory when we view the victim 
of sacrifice as God's manifestation of righteous- 
ness contrasted with the heinousness of sin and 
the dark background of the wrath of God against 
it 

The wrath of God is as much a fact as the 
love of God. Nor can we escape the mystery of 
the problem of evil by transferring it to the 
physical realm and denying the agency of Divine 
Providence in the history of the world. God is 
responsible for all law, natural as well as spir- 
itual. And if the suffering and death that every- 
where trails the path of sin is the consequence of 
broken law, it is His law; and antipathy to un- 
godliness belongs to the eternal moral order. 

122 



LAW AND THE CROSS 

The mystery of iniquity may always remain 
a mystery; but we do know that righteousness 
and obedience is eternal moral order, while un- 
righteousness—or disobedience to moral law— is 
discord, pain, and death to transgressors. The 
history of this world, with its riven rocks and 
reigns of terror, together with the more than 
shadowy intimations of a dark spiritual world of 
fallen angels and wretched demons awaiting a 
future and final judgment, point to some fearful 
visitations of the wrath of God in periods past, 
while revelation and the guilty consciences of 
wicked men prophesy a future ' ' day of wrath and 
the righteous judgment of God." 

God is holy. He will not— He can not brook 
sin. His only treatment of it is extermination, 
and death is its only penalty. He means to have 
a holy universe. Infinite purity is not going to 
embrace the putrid corpse of a dead soul any more 
than the waters of the sea will assimilate the dead 
body cast upon it; not while wind and wave and 
tide and current conspire to keep its bosom clean. 

The death of Christ did not appease the wrath 
of God. It was not meant to make any change 
in His personal disposition toward sin or sinners. 
His everlasting, implacable hatred of wrong and 
His constant, immutable, and eternal love of right 

123 



LAW AND THE CEOSS 

was in no way changed or placated. "tTustice and 
judgment are the habitations of His throne." 

St Paul avers in the preface of the Epistle to 
the Eomans— 1: 18— that "the wrath of God is 
revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and 
unrighteousness of men." 

Every apostolic deliverance in the New Testa- 
ment sounds an awful note of alarm— to flee from 
the wrath to come. In the Book of Eevelation— 
6:16— we read of guilty men fleeing from the 
face of God and ' ' the wrath of the Lamb. ' ' Such 
truth is not congenial to a compromising gospel, 
nor with the gentleness typed in the figure of a 
Lamb. But it comports with the righteousness 
and rectoral wrath of a God of love, and with the 
justice that visits mercy spurned and love abused. 
(It may be that if we were holy enough to see 
as God sees and love as God loves, our own past 
transgressions would Mndle within us a resent- 
ment for sin somewhat resembling holy wrath; 
at least enough to take the side of the Lamb in 
His judgment against incorrigible sinners.) 

Says St. Paul (Ephesians 6:6), "Let no man 
deceive you with vain words : for because of these 
things cometh the wrath of God upon the children 
of disobedience." 

The cross of Christ was not a compromise: 
124 



LAW AND THE CEOSS 

Nor a 1 wheel within a wheel, by which God could 
presume that He loved men when He hated them. 
He always loved the world of sinners, and de- 
plored the guilt and delighted not in the death of 
any: But eternal, immutable righteousness must 
punish sin. He was not willing that any should 
perish, but could not consistently ignore the de- 
merit of sin and pardon it. To justify sinners 
would justify sin and compromise God, and other- 
wise introduce a dangerous and no doubt ulti- 
mately a more damning precedent into the moral 
government of His intelligent creatures than the 
execution of the primary penalty which the law 
imposed. 

To pardon sin and save sinners without violat- 
ing principles of righteousness was therefore the 
governmental problem that confronted the divine 
love, and it could not be solved by any means 
less than the voluntary death of the Son of God. 

This being true, the Father gave the Son and 
the Son gave Himself, coming as a ransom for 
us, to die in our stead. 

Thus His death became a substitute for the 
penalty; adequately, lawfully, abundantly, and 
satisfactorily substituting the penalty, and thus 
declaring the righteousness of God, that He might 
be just and the Justiner of him which believeth 

125 



LAW AND THE CROSS 

in Jesus. But in the plainest terms of common 
parlance, it would have been wrong for God to 
overlook the transgression of His law, the an- 
nounced penalty of which was death ; and the par- 
don of a penitent sinner could not be justified 
without some adequate atonement for sin. Just 
as it would be wrong for G-od to justify a sinner 
who does not repent of his sins and receive the 
proffered benefit of the atonement by receiving 
Christ. The first He could not do for reasons 
stated, and the second He can not do for reasons 
that are apparent. 

It was not a commercial transaction— that is, 
so much of the humiliation and suffering and 
death of the Divine Christ for so much more of 
the sufferings and death of human beings. The 
idea of exchange must not be carried into the 
realm of mathematical or commercial equivalents, 
except that one thing transpires instead of an- 
other. It is true that there is an analogy be- 
tween the penalty and the substitute for the pen- 
alty, as we shall attempt to show later; but com- 
mercial ideas of the atonement have led to some 
very erroneous conclusions: Such as that Christ 
having paid the penalty for all men, it would be 
wrong for Him to exact it of some men again, 
etc 

126 



LAW AND THE CROSS 

The death of Christ accomplished results that 
would otherwise have been impossible ; but in our 
view of it, first of all it made it lawful and right 
for God to justify the ungodly and to establish 
that divine economy of redemption, which, with 
every legal barrier removed, placed the human 
race where every soul was made salvable. 

It did not work any change in the mind of 
God, nor any other change in the soul of man 
than would have been wrought if the death of 
Christ had occurred at the beginning or at the 
end of the world. For be it remembered that 
grace— all grace, including the perpetuity of the 
race, the older dispensations of Divine Providence 
in the ancient world, the Mosaic dispensation 
(under types and shadows), as well as the present 
dispensation of the Holy Spirit, together with all 
the agencies, means, and materials employed in 
the moral renovation of man— was made possible 
"by the blood of His cross." 

The atonement is not a parenthetic innovation, 
standing midway in the scheme of providential 
government. It dates with the inception of that 
economy. The Lamb is conceptionally ' i slain from 
the foundation of the world." It might satisfy 
our limited notion of things if it dated after the 
foundation of the world, but it dates before. ' ' He 

127 



LAW AND THE CROSS 

is the Alpha as well as the Omega," and "all 
things were made by Him, and without Him was 
not anything made that was made;" so that the 
Lamb of God was not only the surety for the 
outcome of free, contingent moral government, but 
God's justification for creating the world as the 
very theater of its operation. 

Deep in the immensity of all being and entity, 
and above the reach of chance or change or con- 
tingency, and presiding over all dispensations of 
all worlds is the righteousness of God. Here is 
the anchorage of all hope, the assurance of all 
mortal and immortal well-being, and the final 
safety of all the works and worlds of God. 

But the creation of a world and the inaugura- 
tion of a moral government upon it implies peril. 
What if His creatures sin? What if free moral 
agents choose to violate their liberty? 

What if the first guilty pair is summarily dealt 
with? What if their extinction had been the only 
penalty? Answer: The Eternal God has made 
His first mistake, and moral government is a fail- 
ure. What if the penalty had only been the aban- 
donment of man and the race is left without the 
light of life, to propagate, and prey upon each 
other until the last brutal remnant had become 
extinct, and an empty blasted earth had been left 

128 



LAW AND THE CROSS 

to roll on in utter moral oblivion? What a me- 
morial of judgment to hang up in the sight of the 
universe as a declaration of the righteousness of 
God and of failure ! 

What if, instead of an abandoned earth, He 
had removed the first offenders and created an- 
other Adam' under similar conditions of proba- 
tion? He must be free to be accountable ; and how 
many more experiments of this kind would it re- 
quire to prove that righteousness, which is essen- 
tial to all the highest ends of moral government, 
could not be secured by commanding what is right 
and condemning what is wrong— that is, by law 
alone? 

To the eternal honor of His wisdom, God never 
failed nor intended to fail. All the hazards of 
free moral agency were met in the Mediator as 
provided in the "Eternal purpose which He pur- 
posed in Christ Jesus.' ' The penalty in full was 
not executed, but only in part and so far as the 
disciplinary requirements of moral government 
and the mortal and immortal interests of His 
creatures required that a visitation of the divine 
displeasure should serve as a perpetual memorial 
of the fall of man and the righteousness of God, 
reserving the final disclosure of the incarnation, 
the cross, and the resurrection to the: "fullness 
9 129 



LATT AXD THE CROSS 

of time," when with a full revelation of His law 
and the perpetual memorials of sacrificial atone- 
ment. He could gather the nations about the cross 
aud consummate eternal redemption for us— not 
at the time of the fall of man ; not deferred to the 
time of the end; not in the great day of His 
wrath: "But to declare, I say, at this time His 
righteousness; that He might he just and the 
Justifier of him which believeth in Jesus.'' 

' ' Everlasting Righteousness. ' ' 

The atonement of Jesus Christ was not an end 
of itself, but a means to an end: The end sought 
being the salvation of men. As the means of 
propitiation, the means of manifesting God's 
method of righteousness, and the means of sub- 
duing the hearts of men, it is indeed i i the wisdom 
of God and the power of God." It served both 
to render salvation possible and then as chief 
among the means employed for its accomplish- 
ment. 

Righteousness; God's righteousness; God's 
method of righteousness, and the righteousness 
(or rectification) of men is the burden of the Book 
of Eomans. When Paul says that Christ Jesus 
is set forth to be a propitiation, through faith in 
His blood, to declare His righteousness, that God 

130 



LAW AND THE CEOSS 

might be just and the Justifier of him which be- 
lieveth in Jesus, he plainly avers two things, 
namely, that the death of Christ vindicated God 
in proffering salvation to men conditioned on their 
faith. These conditions are part of the instru- 
ment — the one as much as the other. In other 
words, the righteous God will rectify sinners con- 
ditioned on the atonement and their acceptance of 
it, thus agreeing with that old maxim of law, that 
"without the shedding of blood there is no re- 
mission, " and recognizing a fundamental fact in 
moral government, namely, that men who are free 
to sin are also free to remain sinners and to sutler 
the consequences. 

No atonement can be made that does not 
justify God in extending clemency to the guilty 
and recognize at the same time the free agency 
and personal accountability of human subjects. 

When the apostle says, "But now the right- 
eousness of God is manifested without the law, 
being witnessed by the law and the prophets," he 
evidently refers to the Jewish sacrifices ended 
with the one Great Offering and to the testimony 
of all the prophets, from Moses to John; when, 
as Peter says, "The Spirit of Christ which was in 
them did signify when it testified beforehand the 
sufferings of Christ and the glory that should 

131 



LAW AND THE CROSS 

follow" 1 1 Peter 1:11). Take, for example. 

great epitome of atonement found in Daniel's 

prophecy: " Seventy weeks are determined upon 

people and upon Thy holy city to finish the 

transgression, and to make an end of sins, and to 

make reconciliation for iniquity, and to "bring in 

g i ighi usness, and to seal up Eh 3 vision 

prophecy, and to anoint the most holy" (Dam 

9:24). 

What a vc lepths of the years wit- 

nessing to the great "reoonfflliation" and to 
' ' bringing in of e e r i sting righteonsness ! ' ' Xo t 
the remnoiliaticn of a Holy G-cd t: unholy men. 
"tit reoenenmg tne everlasting" rignteousness oi 
God to the justihoatian and sarotihoation and 
gl : rih: : ticn :t sinners and thus restoring them 
t: tit sternal moral order without the violation 
single principle in the moral government : 
<t; 1 anfi giving them, through Chris:, a salvation 
grounded in th i a sting righteousness of a 

A lost wr rid and -'_■- i;v ;: God to the res 
would be tragedy enough to employ the celestial 
harps forever. But that the Sinless One she 
be delivered by the xransel and 

foreknov: |ge : Q : 1" and be taken and by 
wicked hands crucified and slain, is tit- most start- 
le. 



LAW AND THE CROSS 

ling wonder of the universe. A wonder which 
from its very nature inspires in every thinking 
mind the question, Why the necessity? The only 
rational answer must be one that will recognize 
some principle, either in the moral government 
of God or otherwise involved in the issue of re- 
demption itself which rendered it impossible for 
God to save men without the sacrifice of His Son. 
And to this the New Testament agrees. That 
impossibility, as we have seen, was searched to 
the utmost limit in the prayer of Gethsemane, 
and the cup could not be removed. 

Now, what is there in the nature of redemp- 
tion itself which required the death of Christ as 
the only possible means? Surely God is not lim- 
ited in resources and could have provided other 
means to effect the ends of salvation? All things 
are possible with God. 

But while things predicable of wisdom and 
power are possible with God, things involving the 
violation of a principle are not. And when the 
Scriptures plainly announce that the purpose of 
Christ's death was that God might be just and 
the Justifier of him which believeth in Jesus, we 
have found the one grea,t principle involved in 
the marvelous deed : That God might be just. 

Now, eternal honor to the integrity of our God : 
133 



LAW AND THE CROSS 

Eternal glory to the name of our Lord Jesus 
Christ: Our redemption was not a concessional 
clemency at the expense of everlasting: righteous- 
ness! The perpetuity of our existence as im- 
mortal beings is not more sure nor laid in better 
terms than the charter of our redemption, which 
was "wrought out," the "price" paid, the life 
"laid down" by Him "who, once in the: end of 
the world, offered Himself without spot to God 
through the Eternal Spirit." 

Had our salvation been the mere charity of a 
love which pity or the prerogative of an indulgent 
father provides, it could just as easily be revoked 
and the saints would forever face the hazard and 
live in the eternal jeopardy of their lives. 

But now, Jesus having died to make it ciOEOh 
sistent with the justice of God to save sinners, 
every saved sinner can stand up with the babes 
in heaven and among the elder children of eter- 
nity with a clean record and claim the preroga- 
tives of sonship with as clear a title to everlasting 
righteousness as the celestial sons that never 
sinned. St. Paul often strikes a note that chords 
with this. In 2 Tim. 1:9 we read, "Who hath 
saved us and called us with an holy calling, not 
according to our works, but according to His own 
purpose and grace, which was given us in Christ 

134 



LAW AND THE CEOSS 

Jesus before the world began." Truly it was 
not according to our works, but it was neverthe- 
less a merited pardon— merited by Him who made 
the one sacrifice for sin forever. We have thus 
"a> right to the tree: of life," and through Jesus 
Christ a warrant grounded in the immutable jus- 
tice of God. 

We conclude this chapter with a quotation 
which confirms what we have tried to prove. The 
wonder is that St. Paul could crowd so much of 
great thought into the space of the eleven verses 
of Oolossians 1:12-22: 

"Giving thanks unto the Father who hath 
made us meet to be partakers of the inheritance 
of the saints in light. Who hath delivered us from 
the power of darkness, and hath translated us 
into the Kingdom of His dear Son: In whom 
we have redemption through His blood, even the 
forgiveness of sins : Who is the image of the in- 
visible God, the firstborn of every creature: For 
by Him were all things created that are in heaven 
and that are in earth, visible and invisible, whether 
they be thrones, or dominions, or principalities, or 
powers: all things were created by Him and for 
Him: And He is before all things, and by Him 
all things consist, And He is the Head of the 
body, the Church : who is the beginning, the first- 

135 



LAW AND THE CROSS 

bom from the dead; that in all things He might 
have the pre-eminence. For it pleased the Father 
that in Him should all fullness dwell: And hav- 
ing made peace through the blood of His cross, 
by Him to reconcile all things unto Himself; by 
Him, I say, whether they be things in earth or 
things in heaven. And you that were sometime 
alienated and enemies in your mind by wicked 
works, yet now hath He reconciled in the body 
of His flesh through death, to present you holy 
and unblamable and unreprovable in His sight." 



136 



CHAPTER XL 

THE SIMPLICITY OF THE ATONEMENT. 

" The atonement which reason can prove is needed, Kevela- 
tion declares has been made." — Joseph Cook. 

We hear much about the mystery of the atone- 
ment, and scarce anything with reference to its 
simplicity. In this chapter let us survey the 
ground and emphasize only the things that appeal 
to our understanding. 

The supreme test of any system of philosophy 
is its harmony with the nature of things : Will it 
fit in with the facts as we know them? The story 
of the fall of man, which has been the butt of so 
much ridicule on the part of skeptics and of 
patronizing dissent on the part of sciolists, and of 
some critics of the cosmogony of Moses, is not- 
withstanding the most natural thing that could 
occur— as a contingency most probable. It is an 
unworthy view of the divine purpose to suppose 
that God would create man defective in moral 
sense, or that he should not be free to choose 
between right and wrong. If so, the peril of such 
creation inheres in man's endowment: and it ex- 
tends to every one thus endowed, to the latest 
accountable creature. 

137 



LAW AND THE CROSS 

When we see a railroad wreck, with the track 
torn up, the locomotive in the ditch, and the cars 
splintered, we at once infer that some law has 
been broken: not merely the arbitrary rules of 
the road, bnt some law of physics as immutable as 
gravitation. Nor do we hastily infer that it was 
any part of the intention of the men who built 
that road to have that wreck. In the light of 
human history the same is true. There has been 
a wreck. Some law has been broken. If man was 
made, as everything else apparently was, to 
glorify his Maker and serve some divine purpose, 
he has "come short of it." History with its long, 
dark catalogue of sin and shame, of crime and 
cruel abominations, of age-long struggle between 
the powers of light and darkness, proves that the 
race of man is not subjected to conditions of 
necessity, nor fitted into the harmonious mechan- 
ism of an eternal moral order; as indeed it cer- 
tainly would have been if Grod had held its con- 
duct and destiny in His own keeping. 

Indeed such is the harmony between the Book 
and the facts as we know them that we would 
view with suspicion any philosophical account of 
the race that did not begin with the "Fall of 
Man. ' ' For either some epochal and distinctively 
contingent calamity has fallen to his lot, or hu- 

138 



LAW AND THE CROSS 

manity along the line of its ages on earth has 
wandered away from the standards requisite to 
its pre-intended birthright and calling. 

Sin. 

Sin is not an entity— a, thing. The evil of 
sin is not visible and tangible, so that it can be 
shown. The demerit of sin can only be shown 
by its punishment. The suffering of some ade- 
quate and exemplary penalty alone would pro- 
claim both the evil of sin and the divine abhor- 
rence. We can not conceive any method by which 
God could exhibit the character of sin as it is 
and manifest both His righteousness and His un- 
compromising abhorrence of sin that would not 
involve punishment. 

Certain it is that God has appended to the vio- 
lation of His laws the most fearful visitations 
of retributive justice. And notwithstanding all 
that He has done for the amelioration of the race, 
mankind has been woefully punished. By the 
withdrawal of His presence, and through the de- 
basing nature of sin itself, the state of man is 
rendered a ruin, the nature of which we will not 
discuss. It is sufficiently expressed in the Hebrew 
word for sin, which means to miss the mark. If, 
as we havei seen, man was created for some high 

139 



LAW AND THE CROSS 

and holy purpose., he has forfeited his being by 
becoming useless for the purpose of his original 
destiny. 

While these general truths are so well known 
as to seem commonplace, it is not so well known 
that the primary penalty, duly announced and 
everywhere recognized in the Scriptures as the 
only primary penalty, was death. The law of 
righteousness makes no compromise with sin, and 
a forfeiture of lifei, with all its endowments and 
the destiny primarily purposed, is the declared 
and the only logical penalty. Death is the logical 
penalty, not only because it was declared, but for 
reasons grounded in the divine character and in 
the character thus debased and disqualified for 
the ends of its being. 

We come now to face the problem of recov- 
ery. This will appear if we raise the question 
of consistency. Would it be consistent on the 
part of the Lawgiver, either to ignore His law, or 
to modify its terms? Is the physical universe in 
every atom and every world to obey the laws of 
life and being, and exist in that obedience, while 
the moral exhibits an exception? Would it com- 
port with the character of God, the nature of 
things, and the interests of moral government to 
ignore the penalty and extend the mercy of par- 

140 



LAW AND THE CROSS 

don to transgressors without some adequate, per- 
tinent, and impressive manifestation of the divine 
displeasure? If the penalty was just and plainly 
declared, could the Supreme Being deny His word 
and violate principles of righteousness, by con- 
senting to enter into covenant relations with man 
and on the terms of His own volition cancel his 
guilt and receive him again into favor? 

Certainy He could not consistently do so. As 
we have before: urged, the righteousness of God, 
the law declared, and the interests of moral gov- 
ernment made it necessary either to inflict the 
penalty or to provide a substitute for the penalty, 
which substitute would be a full legal and moral 
equivalent for the penalty itself. Against the ne- 
cessity for an atonement arising out of these con- 
ditions, it is sometimes urged that the infinite 
can not be limited and therefore can not be con- 
fronted by a necessity. We reply: Certainly, 
when abstractly considered, the infinite can not 
be limited. But when you add to that proposi- 
tion another factor you change it entirely. God 
is not limited ; but when He comes to create some- 
thing, and conditions inhere in that something, He 
has limited Himself by the conditions thus cre- 
ated. For instance: That God might be just 
it was not necessary that He provide a propiti- 

141 



LAW AND THE CROSS 

ation ; but that God might be just and the Justifier 
of the ungodly, it was necessary; that necessity 
being measured by the added term, "Justifier of 
the ungodly." The same principle is involved in 
what Jesus said to His disciples after His resur- 
rection, ' ' Ought not Christ to have suffered these 
things?" And again, in the same interview, 
"Thus it is written, and thus it behooved Christ 
to suffer," etc. 

It was imperative that Christ should surfer; 
not on the grounds of merit, but of consistency; 
and that consistency was necessary. Necessary to 
the divine character, both as declared in the law 
and in the prophets. To say, therefore, that the 
infinite can not be limited by a necessity is not 
merely to ignore all possible contingencies, but 
it is to deprive the Divine Being of that which 
every one of His moral creatures possesses, 
namely, freedom. God is not an infinite mathe- 
matical abstraction, nor an abstract absolute, but 
an "I AM." Therefore, if He pleases to create 
conditions, make promises, and save sinners, He 
must abide by the law of consistency. Otherwise 
He is not the Jehovah! of the Scriptures, but the 
god of a pantheistic philosophy. 

From the first we find that God did not pro- 
ceed to the recovery of man by the exercise of 

142 



LAW AND THE CROSS 

mere prerogative. He instituted a, relevant, pub- 
lic, and impressive memorial, both of the fact of 
human sin, and the consequent forfeiture of life. 
He instituted an economy of grace suited to the 
demands of holy law, and ordained a providential 
process of education that would lead up to some 
just conception of the divine method of redemp- 
tion through our Lord Jesus Christ. 

From the first we find that sacrifice preceded 
prayer, and that in the opinion of all men of every 
race the shedding of blood was a prerequisite to 
the divine favor. "Without the shedding of blood 
no; remission of sin" came to be a postulate of 
axiomatic verity. Whether the idea was received 
by revelation or from remotest tradition, it mat- 
ters not. With the Jew it was by revelation; 
and the gross and horrid rites of heathenism are 
but perversions of the same primitive thought. 

It is written, Lev. 17: 11, "For the life of the 
flesh is in the blood, and I have given it to you 
upon the altar, to make an atonement for your 
souls; for it is the blood that maketh atonement 
for the soul." 

In Ex. 12: 13, of the blood of the Passover, it 
is written, "The blood shall be to you a token 
upon the; houses where ye are; and when I see the 
blood, I will pass over you, and the plague shall 

143 



LAW AND THE CROSS 

not be upon you to destroy you when I smite the 
land of Egypt" 

Long* anterior to the covenant of Sinai, which 
was sealed by the same token, wherever we find 
a worshiper, whether by some lone altar in the 
wilderness or in the stately ceremonial of tribes 
and nations, and down to the voice that cried, 
"Behold the Lamb of God that taketh away the sin 
of the world !" it was the blood that made possible 
an approach to God. 

Certainly there could be no saving merit nor 
any spiritual value in the blood of a dumb crea- 
ture, except as a symbol and a substitute. How 
far the Israelite could analyze the symbol and 
apply the sign to the thing signified we can not 
tell. But since the life of the transgressor was 
forfeited by sin, and the life of the animal was 
substituted, doubtless it appealed to his reason; 
and when he laid his hand upon the head of the 
victim and leaned thereon, he could not but feel 
his dependence upon the sacrifice for the divine 
favor and for reconciliation with God. It was as 
much an act of faith in the symbol which Jehovah 
had instituted as is the attitude of the Christian 
whose sole dependence for salvation is the Lamb 
of God. 

The whole was but typical, and a better sacri- 
144 



LAW AND THE CROSS 

fice must be provided, both to render these efficient 
and to consummate a full, perfect, and sufficient 
sacrifice, oblation, and satisfaction for the sins of 
the whole world; reserved for a later revelation. 

According to the New Testament Scriptures 
the blood of Jesus was typified by all these an- 
cient sacrifices, and His atonement was the ground 
of salvation to every being born of Adam. They 
were sufficient then as affording a basis of faith 
in Christ. They were promissory, and like prom- 
issory notes, they had to be redeemed. They were 
not the real atonement, but they represented the 
real atonement; and back of them was the right- 
eousness of God. 

The Epistle to the Hebrews was written to 
prove, illustrate, and enforce this truth. It is one 
of the most marvelous productions of holy writ, 
and is capable of an analysis showing the most 
perfect unity of design between the ritual of the 
Old Dispensation and the gospel of the New. For 
want of space, we are obliged to drop out of our 
design an attempt to do this and treat the Book 
of Hebrews with as much attention as we have 
given the Book of Romans. With any mind of 
candor there can be no question that the apostles 
of Jesus delivered to us a gospel of salvation 
"through faith in His blood" based and builded 
10 145 



LAW AND THE CROSS 

upon the holy oracles and ordinances of Israel; 
and those who deny or affect not to see any con- 
nection between the sacrifices of the Old Testa- 
ment and the atonement of the New, distort the 
facts and treat the truth with violence. 

Is it not a wonderful confirmation of the truth 
and divinity of the apostolic doctrine of the atone- 
ment that this unity runs through all the Scrip- 
tures, from the altar of Abel to the visions of the 
apocalypse of John? In the Book of Revelation 
the doctrine of the atonement flowers out in all 
the drapery of a gorgeous revelation. The book is 
the book of the "Lamb." He is the imperial 
presence in every vision. No such glorified per- 
sonage ever astonished the gaze of mortal man 
as the appearance of Jesus, "walking in the midst 
of the golden candlesticks." Too overpowering 
to bear, John fell at His feet as dead. It is the 
Lamb that appears on Mount Zion. It is the 
Lamb that appears in the midst of the throne. It 
is the Lamb that prevails to open the book. In- 
fernal coadjuvancies make war on the Lamb ; the 
Lamb shall overcome them. From the first grand 
chorus that rolls its rapture to the throne say- 
ing, "Unto Him that loved us and washed us in 
His blood, unto Him be glory," through all the 
unfolding drama of voices and vials, and trum- 

146 



LAW AND THE GROSS 

pets and thunders, to the Marriage Supper, it 
is the Lamb that was slain. The Old and New 
Dispensations are blended in "the song of Moses 
and the Lamb." They "overcome through the 
blood of the Lamb." The "Book" is the Lamb's 
Book of Life. They need not the sun, for "the 
Lamb is the Light thereof ; ' ' and the throne itself 
is "the throne of God and the Lamb." 

Important Distinctions (Analogy). 

The analogy between the penalty, as announced 
by the law, and the substitute for the penalty is 
perfect. Jesus tasted death for every man. The 
meaning and the measure of that death we can 
not fathlom. Death as it occurs in the order of 
nature is the separation of the soul and body. 
The dread of death is upon every creature, No 
stoical philosophy and no poetic fancy can rid 
us of the fear of death or rob the king of terrors 
of his renown. It is an enemy ; ' ' the last enemy. ' ' 
Nothing but the grace of God can face it with in- 
difference. Then there is a "second death." It 
can not be less than the separation of the soul from 
God. 

We know that the suffering Son of God sur- 
rendered His life; but beyond the approach of 
dissolution, which He could not fear, what mean® 

147 



LAW AND THE CROSS 

that loud and heart-rending cry, "My God, My 
God, why hast Thon forsaken Me!" Here, alone 
with the intolerable burden of the sins of the world 
upon His heart, He died. The world's Redeemer 
died! 

It was not His life that atoned. It was not 
His obedience that atoned. It was His obedience 
unto death. It was not even His sufferings that 
atoned : It was His suffering of death that atoned 
for sin. 

Truly the analogy between the death of Christ 
and the penalty, in every item except that of 
duration, was perfect. It was not the same. "We 
can not make it the same, though we reckon His 
divinity over against the lack of duration. It was 
analagous. It was not the penalty: it was the 
substitute for the penalty. It is true that the 
value of the propitiation rises or falls with the 
question of the divinity of Christ; but divinity 
is not duration, and whatever the analogy, it is 
not the same. 

We reject the Penal Satisfaction Theory of the 
Atonement for two reasons: First, we must not 
mistake analogy for identity, which the said theory 
does- Second, if we aver that Jesus suffered the 
penalty, it leads logically to one of two errors, 
namely, either to a limited atonement, including 

148 



LAW AND THE CEOSS 

the elect only, or to an universal atonement, in- 
cluding the salvation of all men, regardless of 
conditions. For if The Penalty has been suffered, 
it would not be just to require it again; and all 
for whom Christ died must be saved. Now, we 
know that the New Testament teaches: an unlim- 
ited atonement, and makes the final salvation of 
accountable men to depend upon conditions, in- 
clusive of both the atonement and their acceptance 
of Christ 

If, therefore, Christ died for all men, the atone- 
ment was a provisional expedient by which God 
might be just and the Justifier of him which be- 
lieveth in Jesus. He did not suffer the penalty; 
but His suffering of death was a substitute for 
the penalty, and analagous only so far as it be- 
came Him "to declare His righteousness for the 
remission of sins that are past" (Rom. 3:25). 
The only Scriptural warrant for a penal satisfac- 
tion (one that renders the atonement a quid pro 
quo— so much for so much) is found in the words 
and terms employed to express the idea of substi- 
tution. 

Ransom, redeemed, bought with a price, the 
Just for the unjust, etc., imply substitution. Like- 
wise many of our hymns and sacred songs chord 
witli the same thought and are to be commended. 

149 



LAW AND THE CROSS 

But these words and terms are as much in accord 
with the idea of a substitute for the penalty as 
with a suffered penalty. The ideas are all related 
ones; and the fact that Jesus gave Himself for 
us, regardless of the manner of His death, is the 
root idea of redemption. 

Failing to note these distinctions, and fearing 
the logical conclusions of a commercial exchange, 
some advocates of the Governmental Theory have 
lost sight of the element of satisfaction altogether. 
By placing the emphasis on public justice as the 
ground of necessity for an atonement, instead of 
the "righteousness of God," it may be a question 
whether the idea of satisfaction is sufficiently con- 
served. Whether it is or not will depend more 
upon our individual interpretation of it. Public 
justice, having reference to all the interests of 
moral government, must be broadened to take in 
the principle of justice as grounded in the right- 
eousness of God, else it falls short of St. Paul's 
' ' that God might be just. ' ' 

Both the terms, Satisfaction and Govern- 
mental, are happy and eminently suggestive: for 
the one is embodied in all redemptive nomencla- 
ture and the other puts the emphasis where it 
belongs in any discussion regarding the necessity 
for an atonement. But between the idea of a 

150 



-LAW AND THE CROSS 

suffered penalty and a substitute for the penalty 
is all tlie difference between a judicial acquittal 
and a provisional propitiation by whichi God 
might justly acquit those who comply with its 
terms. We therefore assume the latter to be true 
of the atonement, and interpret St. Paul as teach- 
ing that justification is the judicial acquittal. 



151 



CHAPTER XII. 

THEORIES OF THE ATONEMENT. VICARIOUS. TRI- 
TJMPHANTORIAL. 

What must an atonement do to effect the possi- 
bility of pardoned sin 1 And, What must an atone- 
ment be to accomplish that end? 

These are questions that chiefly concern us in 
this treatise; and to the first we reply that an 
atonement^ aside from the many salutary ends 
sought to be secured by it, must be addressed to 
the hindrances which in perfect moral govern- 
ment render pardon otherwise impossible. 

Since the impediment that bars the pardon of 
sin is the law, that rule of action which is 
grounded in the righteousness of God and which 
demands obedience or penalty, therefore the 
atonement must be one that will secure that obe- 
dience or suffer that penalty; or, it must render 
a legal equivalent for that penalty. (The law does 
not require both obedience and penalty— they are 
legal, not moral equivalents.) 

The legal barriers are not removed by chang- 
ing anything organic in moral government, but 
by meeting the requirements of law while extend- 

152 



LAW AND THE CROSS 

ing the benefits of pardon. Thus the divine char- 
acter is unimpeaehed and the moral government 
of God is unimpaired. 

What the atonement is— in answer to the sec- 
ond question— we reserve to later pages. 

Our answer to the question of necessity for 
an atonement, both with reference to the demerit 
of sin and the interests of moral government, is 
applicable to any theory of a vicarious atonement 
which claims the sanction of the New Testament. 
If we are careful to distinguish between the gov- 
ernmental necessity for an atonement, which pre- 
cedes the question of the salutary benefits growing 
out of the atonement, we will have no temptation 
to mix effects with causes. In logical order, the 
question of necessity must first be met and an- 
swered. Then the field is open for a study of the 
nature, the extent, and the mystery of the atone- 
ment. 

Theories. (Their Answer.) 

This primary question (of necessity) is at- 
tempted to be answered by all the evangelical 
theories of the atonement. It is ignored by all 
others ; or if attempted, in a way that is intangible 
or irrelevant. That God might be just and the 
Justifier, is the answer of all theories of a vicari- 

153 



LAW AND THE CROSS 

ous atonement. (The word " vicarious/ ' which is 
defined in general terms to mean "performed or 
suffered in the place of another/ ' has long "been 
employed to designate an "orthodox" view of the 
atonement ; and a denial of a vicarious atonement 
is understood to refer to all evangelical theories. 
The odium which attaches to it is well deserved. 
It belongs to the ' i offense of the cross, ' ' and comes 
legitimately from those who deny that the atone- 
ment of Christ is the ground of salvation.) 

The answer of the "Satan" Theory is a diver- 
sion! The answer of the "Penal Satisfaction 
Theory" emphasizes the retributive justice of 
God. The answer of the " Governmental or Sec- 
toral Theory" rejects that view and places the 
demand in rectoral or public justice. The ' ' Moral 
Influence Theory" (is non-vicarious) underrates 
the question by its attitude with reference to sin 
and affords no answer. Since in that view the 
atonement is not the ground of salvation, an an- 
swer is not needed. 

Our answer to the question of necessity agrees 
with all the evangelical theories of the atone- 
ment in finding that the atonement was impera- 
tive and its necessity grounded in the justice of 
God. And we do not see how it is possible to 
maintain any atonement that can properly be 

154 



LAW AND THE CROSS 

called an atonement, claiming the sanction of the 
New Testament, and place it on any other ground. 

By ignoring the proper definition of words and 
terms, or by torturing tliem out of all meaning, 
an ingenious logic may build an atonement on any- 
thing else, but it can by no means escape the 
charge of having abandoned the New Testament. 

It seems to us to involve the question as to 
whether or not the death of Christ was an atone- 
ment, for sin; and the answer must be either af- 
firmative or negative. If it is negative, it is a 
flat denial of the text. It is perfectly natural 
that we should differ as to the nature of the 
atonement— what it is and what it does— else we 
would learn nothing from each! other ; but a denial 
of the fact, even by implication, is a denial of 
the Scriptures. 

We contest no rights; but forasmuch as some 
have supposed that an evangelical treatment of 
the subject is antiquated, we stand by the logic 
of these statements and challenge all critics. 

That God might be just and the Justifier can 
not be controverted therefore, though it be sus- 
ceptible of many interpretations. 

Our own among the rest may need the revision 
of a thousand years of light and study to bring 
it up to where St. Paul saw into its heights and 

155 



LAW AND THE CROSS 

depths; and though we may felicitate ourselves 
that the world will have to grow that much older 
to do it, it may be, that after all the simplest and 
most common sense view will best chord with the 
New Testament 

Systematic Theology made a bad start with 
its atonement theory, but an acquaintance with the 
methods employed by its reputed author dispels 
every element of surprise. 

Oeigen (A. D. 185-253?), the Father of Bib- 
lical criticism and exegesis, was one of the worth- 
iest of the Christian Fathers. It is said— see Mc- 
Clintock & Strong, Art.— that no man did more 
to settle the true text of the sacred writings and 
to disseminate and expound them. His labors and 
acquisitions, accomplishments and sufferings were 
prodigious, and he was justly celebrated by both 
Christian writers and heathen philosophers. Je- 
rome called him a, man of immortal genius ; and 
it is true that his fame and influence has endured 
for ages. His talents, eloquence, and learning; 
his unyielding integrity and the voluminous prod- 
ucts of his incessant labors, in the midst of perse- 
cution and almost constant personal peril, have 
earned for him the credit of being "one of the 
greatest moral prodigies of the human race." 

But whether from a defect of his peculiar 
156 



LAW AND THE GROSS 

genius, or the fault of his early education and 
environment, he applied to the interpretation of 
the Scriptures a, wrong method, namely, the Alle- 
gorical method, which had been used to interpret 
the heathen mythologies. 

Perhaps so great a man needed such defects to 
make his memory human or to keep him humble 
in heaven. We do not know; but certain it was 
that later — in the fourth century — some of his in- 
terpretations led to violent controversies in the 
Church, and others have continued to embarrass 
his successors to the present day by giving op- 
ponents occasion to discredit the doctrines of the 
New Testament. 

Fortunately for the early period of Christian- 
ity, the fathers were too busy preaching the gospel 
and being persecuted to formulate theories. The 
New Testament furnished all the needed formula 
for those times, and among Christians the fact 
of the atonement and the relation between the 
death of Christ and the pardon of sin were not 
in dispute. From the earliest times we find that 
doctrinal disputation centered in the Person of 
Christ, and continued thus to be the subject of 
interest until " after this was settled by the gen- 
eral prevalence of the Nicene Creed.' ' Chris- 
tianity was a thing of too much life not to pro 

157 



LAW AND THE CROSS 

voke controversy, but the vicarious sufferings of 
Christ seem to have been so fully taught in the 
New Testament and so thoroughly stamped upon 
the gospel as its very life that it was less a 
matter of theological inquiry than of the accept- 
ance or rejection of the gospel itself. That the 
atonement was not scientifically apprehended for 
two or three centuries after the crucifixion is no 
reproach to the thinkers of that period. Science 
itself has nothing to boast. Some of her thinkers 
were great, but her theories have all had to be 
revised. The miracle of all is seen in the fact 
that about A. D. 58 a learned tent-maker could 
write the Book of Romans and give the world a 
theory of the atonement that has kept the thinkers 
busy to the present time, and doubtless will domi- 
nate the common sense of mankind until Christ 
is seen coming again with His angelic hosts tramp- 
ling the clouds of the sky. 

We presume we will never be permitted to for- 
get that the theory of Origen and his school rep- 
resented the death of Christ as a satisfaction ren- 
dered to Satan. The reminder occurs with almost 
every attack upon a vicarious atonement. Satan 
or a satanic skeleton stands in the background as 
a memorial of the folly of the fathers who pre- 
ceded our fathers in teaching the barbarism of a 

158 



LAW AND THE CROSS 

substitutional atonement. Fortunately for our 
fathers that satanic affair was laid to rest about 
one thousand years ago — to be exact, in A. D. 
1098, when the " triumphantorial ' ' theories re- 
ceived their quietus by Anselm's publication, 
"Cur Deus Homo," when theology began to put 
on something like a scientific aspect. 

The fanciful notions of Origen and his school 
are not limited to the atonement, but in all his 
hermeneutic work the imagination plays an im- 
portant part— sometimes to an extent almost be- 
yond fancy. And, no wonder. Christianity grew 
up in the shade of heathenism. All the wealth 
of the world and most of the culture in flourish- 
ing systems of philosophy belong to heathenism, 
and until Christianity had won its way to the 
throne of the Caesars they exerted a dominant and 
a domineering influence. After that scepter de- 
parted another took its place and Christianity it- 
self began to be vitiated. 

St. Paul had arrayed the preaching of the cross 
against the wisdom of this world as foolishness 
with God, and he warned the Church to "beware 
lest any man spoil you through philosophy and 
vain deceit, after the tradition of men, after the 
elements of the world and not after Christ. ' ' He 
set a good example by discarding the philosophies 

159 



LAW AND THE CROSS 

of his day ; and trutli justifies us in saying that he 
laid a broad hand on the history of philosophy 
when he said, "Hath not God made foolish the 
wisdom of this world?" (Col. 1 : 20.) "Where is 
the wise ? Where is the scribe 1 ' ' 

It is no discredit to the Christian thinkers that 
to this day they have sought to harmonize the 
gospel with the "assured findings " of science and 
philosophy: But sometimes they have been mis- 
taken as to the findings, and sometimes as to the 
methods employed. Origen was brave enough to 
deny and combat the errors he saw, in the face of 
impending martyrdom; but he was not wise 
enough to see the folly of the methods of inter- 
pretation then in vogue. Methods which received 
no sanction whatever from the Scriptures— un- 
less St. Paul's allusion to Sarah and Hagar 
("which things are an allegory") may be quoted 
as an exception, and which, when applied to the 
doctrines of the New Testament, led as far astray 
as truth could go without contradicting itself; and 
in some instances it did even that. 

The Satan theory, of which we find traces in 
Irenaeus, 1 and which culminated in the specula^- 

^renaeus — A. D. 180 — represents the sufferings of Christ as made 
necessary by the hold Satan had on man, and in order to a rightful de- 
liverance from that bondage. But in Origen — 230 — the ransom paid to 
the devil comes out fully; to which he added fanciful notions of the 
value of the blood of the martyrs. It was reserved to Gregory of 

160 



LAW AND THE CROSS 

tions of Gregory of Nyssns, has now no advocates, 
and the interpretations of Origen are ancient 
ruins. We would not be quoted as defending the 
theory nor as endorsing the vagaries that Origen 
taught ; and yet there was more of good than evil 
in it His theory of the atonement was much 
nearer in approach to the New Testament than 
some modern philosophical theories that have been 
born and died since the Reformation. He did not 
by implication ignore or deny the Scriptures. It 
was at least in theory and in fact an atonement. 
It was a vicarious atonement. It took due notice 
and account of the demerit of sin. It was not a 
limited atonement. It was triumphantorial, agree- 
ing with that New Testament text which says that 
Christ died ' ' that through death He might destroy 
him that had the power of death, that is the Devil ; 
and deliver them who through fear of death were 

Nyssa— 370 — to affirm that Satan was cheated in the transaction, and 
this was justified in view of his deception of men. But, prior to the 
time of Irenaeus, from the fragments that have come down to us we 
find some of the fathers giving a better report. Among them, Barnabas, 
Clement, and Polycarpe. In Justin Martyr — 147 — the satanic idea is 
not found. Athanasius — 370 — cotemporaneous with Gregory of Nyssa, 
rejected the Satan theory. It does not appear to receive much emphasis 
with others. Gregory the Great — 590 — is credited with having treated 
the doctrine of the atonement with something like scientific precision, 
and from that time we find little of interest added until the time of 
Anslem, to whom we have referred. It is worthy of note, however, that 
though mixed with error and loaded with incongruities, the atonement 
taught by the Church fathers was a vicarious atonement. Their vagaries 
and errors only serve to show the awful gulf into which theology would 
be plunged but for the New Testament to which it is anchored, and the 
common sense with which God has endowed most men. 

ii 161 



LAW AND THE CROSS 

subject to bondage" (Heb. 2: 14). It did not de- 
tract from the divinity of Christ. It did affirm that 
justice was propitiated, and it was an atonement 
for sin. If, therefore, the purpose of the gospel 
was to make the bad good rather than to make 
the good better, it was practicably a better atone- 
ment than that of the modern Moral Influence 
theory, because it was a workable theory. 2 

If, then, this theory of the atonement which 
we repudiate was buttressed and bracketed with 
so many supports, wherein was it weak? And 
what was the organic difficulty? We reply, first 
of all, it erred in that particular which is the vul- 
nerable point of all theories of the atonement, 
namely, in its answer to the question of necessity. 
It met the question of necessity with this answer, 
i. e., "that GJ-od might be just" 

So far it was right; and the only objective 
needed to complete the sentence and the sense, 
making it perfect, is the next clause, "and the 
Justifier of him which believeth in Jesus." The 
phrase, "that God might be just," contains in 
itself the dependent conditioned objective ; and the 
added "just to Satan," or just to any other ob- 
jective notion, is extraneous. 

^Wonder what the Salvation Army would do with, a purely ethical 
atonement ! 

162 



LAW AND THE CROSS 

True, the completed sentence is only the text 
of the New Testament; but the theory— any true 
theory— consists in an interpretation of the clause 
which reads, * * that God might be just. ' ' 

In this the theory failed ; and, virtually ignor- 
ing the fact that some principle in the moral gov- 
ernment of God rendered it inconsistent with His 
justice to justify the ungodly, and placing the 
emphasis upon the rest of the sentence, it went 
astray. 

It is hardly just to the memory of a dead 
theory to pass over its virtues in silence and treat 
only its faults, but if it serves the cause of truth 
we are justified in utilizing its defects as a warn- 
ing. Therefore, to make it perfectly clear as a 
warning, let it be tested by the Word. Baldly 
stated, the theory appears to have been that the 
death of Christ was a ransom to Satan, that God 
might be honest and redeem the world from his 
possession. Now, there can be no manner of 
doubt that our deliverance from his dominion and 
the destruction of Satan are among the salutary 
benefits achieved by the death of Christ. The 
New Testament is clear and profuse with such 
declarations of the ultimate purpose of redemp- 
tion. Not so clear in regard to matters that be^ 
long to the kingdom and power of darkness itself, 

163 



LAW AND THE CROSS 

but with reference to the destruction premised 
and the deliverance promised. In mercy to us, 
much that would gratify our desire for knowledge 
is veiled from us. Perhaps for the reason sug- 
gested in Romans 16:19, 20, "I would have you 
wise unto that which is good, and simple con- 
cerning evil: and the God of peace shall bruise 
Satan under your feet shortly." 

"The Greeks seek after wisdom," and when 
they were introduced to Jesus He gratified the 
quest of "certain" of them by referring to His 
approaching death in the use of these words- 
John 12 : 31— "Now is the judgment of this world ; 
now shall the prince of this world be cast out; 
and I, if I be lifted up from the earth, will draw 
all men unto Me." Then, as if to leave no manner 
of doubt as to what Jesus meant, the writer adds, 
"This He said, signifying what death He should 
die. ' ' Then again, in 1 John 3:8, we read, from 
the same John, "For this purpose was the Son 
of God manifested that He might destroy the 
works of the devil." In the Epistle to the He- 
brews— Heb. 2:14— the death of Christ is made 
the instrumental cause of that destruction, viz., 
"that through death He might destroy him that 
had the power of death, that is, the devil," etc. 

The Book of Revelation is but one great drama 
164 



LAW AND THE CBOSS 

of struggle between the powers of light and dark- 
ness, and though much of it is revealed in symbols 
and veiled in splendors too brilliant for doctrinal 
interpretation, 3 it is plain to be seen that it is an 
apocalypse of the mediatorial triumphs of Jesus 
over sin and Satan. The imperial presiding pres- 
ence in every scene of struggle and triumph is 
the slain Lamb. The victory of Michael and his 
angels over the Dragon and his angels is His vic- 
tory. Chapter 12:11— " And they overcame him 
by the blood of the Lamb. ' ' 

The judgment of her on whose "forehead was 
a name written, Mystery, Babylon the Great, 
the Mother of Harlots and Abominations of the 
Earth ;" and of the "scarlet colored beast full 
of names of blasphemy, having seven heads and 
ten horns," and all the infernal coadjuvancies rep- 
resented by these awful symbols is recorded in 
chapter seventeen, verse fourteen, in these words : 
"These shall make war with the Lamb, and the 
Lamb shall overcome them : for He is the Lord of 
lords and the King of kings: and they that are 
with Him are called, and chosen, and faithful. ' ? A 
record that has made princes tremble and popes 
uneasy under a triple crown, lest perchance its 

3 This must be understood as applicable to minutia. The hermeneutic 
value of the Book of Revelation is not in question. It is full of in- 
spiring topics of doctrinal value and evangelistic interest. 

165 



LAW AND THE CROSS 

lesson of lurid terror was meant for them, by the 
"Word of God," who "treadeth the winepress of 
the fierceness and wrath of Almighty God" 
(19:15). 

That ancient text in Genesis which declared 
that the seed of the woman ' ' shall braise thy head 
and thou shalt bruise his heel," was like a seed 
wrapped in the cerement of a mystery that no 
mortal could penetrate until, after four thousand 
years of burial, it sprang up a tree of life. And 
now, after twenty centuries more, we are begin- 
ning to see that the only effectual bruisings that 
Satan ever had came from the tread of this cruci- 
fied and conquering Redeemer— the slain Lamb. 

But now, returning to the theory which made 
the death of Christ a ransom to Satan— the fault 
of that theory is seen in the fact that it sought 
a ground for the necessity of atonement in the 
results achieved by it, instead of locating that 
necessity in the righteousness of God. Taking the 
words, "that God might be just and the Justifier," 
as the text to be interpreted, it looked forward 
to the deliverance of men and the overthrow of 
evil which belong to the redemptive agencies of 
the cross as the answer to the question of neces- 
sity ; whereas, all these belong to the salutary ef- 
fects indicated in the last part of the clause, viz., 

166 



LAW AND THE CROSS 

"and the Justifier," and not to the first part, viz., 
' ' that God might be just. ' ' 

So far as we know, God could be just and deal 
summarily with Satan (except to pardon him), 
but it would not comport with His justice to 
justify sinners, nor establish the redemptive 
economy which in the vast compass of its purpose 
includes not only the deliverance of men, but the 
destruction of the devil and his angels. There- 
fore, to find the necessity for the death of Christ 
in the achievements of the cross— as this theory 
did, and as all so-called ethical theories do— is 
to err, either by ignoring the justice of God as 
the ground of necessity, or by grafting on some 
extraneous objective foreign to the right answer. 

That little word "and" is the nexus that binds 
together two different worlds of thought. The 
answer to the question of necessity resides in 
the words, "to declare His righteousness, that God 
might be just." The nexus must not be crossed, 
else we leave behind the one great thought which 
by apostolic authority reveals to us the divine im- 
perative. 

To affirm that the need of the death of Christ 
—the atonement— is seen in the benefits that grow 
out of it, is only to say that the benefits which 
proceed from the atonement justify the wisdom of 

167 



LAW AND THE CROSS 

God in providing it. But it does not answer the 
question of imperative necessity which made the 
death of Christ a condition to the forgiveness 
of sins. Books would not contain the reasons for 
the need of an atonement. They are measureless 
as the mercies and boundless as the benefits of 
redemption; but they do not answer the question, 
"What must an atonement do to effect the pos- 
sibility of pardoned sin?" 

An atonement must, first of all, reconcile the 
fundamental principles of moral government to 
the prerogative of pardon. It is a necessity. A 
legal necessity, grounded in the righteousness of 
God, and growing out of the just requirements 
of a perfect moral government, in which pardon 
without an atonement is forever impossible. If, 
as we maintain, the answer of St. Paul is the true 
answer, viz., to declare His righteousness, that 
God might be just," then some vital principle in 
the moral government of God forbade the pardon 
of sin without a propitiation. That principle is 
the righteousness of God: Inherent in His holy 
Being: Fundamental in moral government: De- 
clared by His righteous law, which demanded obe- 
dience or death. Then, if pardon and all the 
benefits reckoned with redemption are to be con- 
ferred on the guilty, the penalty or a legal equiva- 

168 



LAW AND THE CEOSS 

lent for the penalty— a; propitiation— must first be 
provided; "to declare His righteousness, that God 
might be just and the Justifier of him which be- 
lieveth in Jesus." 

A superficial glance at St Paul's climactic— 
"that God might be just"— and the ample use we 
have made of it may suggest the thought that 
our argument is built on a single text, too narrow 
for the foundation of such logical sequences. In 
reply, we call the reader's attention to the fact 
that three chapters precede that text, and it is 
the conclusion and climax of St. Paul's great argu- 
ment: Which, like Mount Everest, supported by 
five miles of solid granite, is rooted in the ever- 
lasting rock. Lo ! it stands, pedestal, base, shaft, 
capital, archetrave, frieze, and cornice, a logical 
column: Architectural, ornamental, and majestic, 
embedded in the eternal, immutable righteousness 
of God. 

This is not a mere proof text. Take this out, 
remove this column, and the Book of Romans 
would be destroyed. Like the Parthenon— its 
beauty marred, its glory gone, and its amplitude 
a ruin. 



169 



CHAPTER XIII. 

THEORIES OF THE ATONEMENT. THE SATISFACTION 
AND THE RECTORAL THEORIES. 

It is not our purpose to furnish an exhaustive 
summary of theories, nor to plow up the whole 
ground, and attempt an analysis and dissection 
of all the old, dry doctrinal bones of theological 
controversy. In our view, the question, What 
must an atonement do to render the pardon of 
sin possible! is attempted in every theory of a 
vicarious atonement. Having treated one theory 
with reference to that question and found it want- 
ing, it remains that we pursue the search with 
some others in the same behest. 

It will be profitable now to question briefly 
three, namely, the Satisfaction, the Rectoral or 
Governmental, and the Moral Influence The- 
ories, and to try them by their answer to the one 
great interrogative. 

Perhaps a reason why so many persons dis- 
avow their understanding of the atonement is be- 
cause they have not made a study of any one 

170 



LAW AND THE CROSS 

phase of it; particularly the one under discus- 
sion, which is vital to the subject and will deter- 
mine: the truth and hence the value of any theory. 
If there is "an element of truth in every theory," 
it should be possible to find it if the criteria is 
the New Testament— though we confess that this 
charitable view is hard to reconcile with any two 
theories which contradict each other on questions 
that are vital to the life of a theory: If indeed 
it is possible to believe there is any truth in a 
theory the basis of which is a denial of the New 
Testament and a challenge of its authority ; though 
we grant that truth may sometimes be found in 
juxtaposition with error, and accept the maxim- 
um grcmo sails. 

The Satisfaction Theoey. 

The law of God required obedience or penalty, 
and when man by transgression lost his amena- 
bility to the one, the other was demanded; there- 
fore the atonement was addressed to a satisfac- 
tion of that demand. 1 Satisfaction is a good word 

1 If from this statement it is inferred that man ever ceased to he 
amenable to the precept of the law, the inference is correct. "Dead" 
is the legal status of a sinner. He is amenable to the penalty. It is 
only through the great atonement that he lives, that pardon is extended 
and that his amenability is restored. "The law hath dominion over a 
man as long as he liveth" — Rom. 7. The penalty for sin is an absolute 
forfeiture, The giving of the law from Sinai's awful summit, and the 
obedience which it enjoined, was an overture of mercy made possible by 
the eternally purposed atonement. 

171 



LAW AND THE CROSS 

with which to express the idea of an atonement. 
So is also the word Substitution, as sometimes 
employed for the same purpose. They emphasize 
the fact that Christ died for us. The word Re- 
demption, of frequent use in the New Testament, 
describes the same fact in nearly the same way. 
All theories of a vicarious atonement are satis- 
faction theories ; but in what is called the ' ' Satis- 
faction Theory" the word is meant to be more 
than a mere nominal designation. The satisfac- 
tion theory as Calvinistically interpreted is a penal 
satisfaction theory, and the death of Christ satis- 
fied the retributive justice of God to which the 
guilty were amenable. He suffered the penalty. 
The obedience and death of Christ is substitu- 
tional— for the elect— and the vicarious work of 
Christ was the real and absolute equivalent for 
that which the transgressor owes to God and His 
justice. Sin with its guilt being imputed to Christ, 
by His payment of the debt the elect are redeemed 
in full. His obedience, as exhibited in His suffer- 
ings and death and His righteous fulfillment of 
the law, is imputed to them. The terms, "His life 
a ransom," "that He might redeem us"— both 
words from \vrp6w— being interpreted literally and 
applied in the same sense as an exact commercial 
equivalent. If therefore Christ has suffered the 

172 



LAW AND THE CROSS 

penalty, it follows that all for whom He thus 
atoned are in strict justice exempted from the 
penalty which the law imposes upon the guilty. 
The grace thus shown is in God's gift of His Son 
and His acceptance of the substitute, rather than 
in the actual bestowment of salvation. This con- 
clusion requires but a universal atonement to in- 
clude a universal salvation : For it would not be 
just to exact the penalty after it had been borne 
by an accepted substitute. 

It is doubtless against the "juridical," "me- 
chanical," and ' l absolute ' ' of this theory that most 
all of the objections to a vicarious atonement are 
hurled; both those which are coarse and fulmi- 
nating, and those which are wrought of theological 
controversy. And yet is has been advocated by 
many learned and pious men. Its necessity is 
grounded on the justice of God. It is in part at 
least supported by pillars of strength standing on 
pedestals of truth which have taxed the strength 
of many a Samson, and they are standing yet 

The Satisfaction Theory relieved of some of 
its most objectionable features has been greatly 
modified by Moderate Calvinists, and what is to- 
day held as a satisfaction theory by a majority 
of evangelical theologians bears slight resem- 
blance to the penal satisfaction theory above re- 

173 



LAW AND THE CROSS 

cited: So much so that it is impossible to do it 
justice in general terms. Indeed, with the ex- 
ception of one distinctive feature — and its log- 
ical inferences — it is difficult to distinguish be- 
tween the more modern view of the satisfaction 
theory and the governmental view itself; the so- 
called "Edwardian Theory" of the atonement 
being substantially the Arminian theory. 2 

It is not in our plan to discuss the doctrine of 
election as applied to the atonement; nor to pur- 
sue the conclusions to which we have referred as 
untenable, any farther than they may be related 
to this question, namely, the question of satisfac- 
tion. In our view the satisfaction theory, how- 
ever modified or modernized, can not escape the 
conclusions of an " absolute' ' atonement, if it con- 
tinues to affirm that Christ suffered the penalty 
which was due the guilty. The one distinguishing 
feature which renders the penal satisfaction the- 
ory such an exact and absolute substitutional the- 
ory, and which drives logically to the untenable 
conclusions so apparent, is grounded on the suppo- 
sition that Christ suffered THE penalty which the 
law imposes : And, any theory which defines His 
death as the penalty, rather than a substitute for 
the penalty, must lead logically to these same con- 

2 Bibliotheca Sacra — 1865. 

174 



LAW AND THE CROSS 

elusions — whether it be a limited or an unlimited 
atonement, 

It is a serious thing to controvert an interpre- 
tation of the doctrine which has borne the sanction 
of many of the best minds of Christendom during 
a period of the most progressive evangelism. A 
theory that has numbered among its adherents 
millions who found in it what they interpreted 
the Holy Scriptures to mean. It grounded the 
necessity for the death of Christ in the eternal 
immutable righteousness of God, and is therefore 
infinitely to be preferred to an ethical atonement, 
which is as near next to none as nothing can be and 
be called a theory of the atonement. Indeed, the 
one great all-absorbing, soul-moving question after 
all is the fact of an atonement,, and the yes or no 
of its being a ground of human salvation. Tested 
by the great try-square of the New Testament, 
common sense, and demonstration, it was right in 
that particular, and it cheered the faith of multi- 
tudes on their way to heaven. It is pretty safe 
to say that the theory itself must have embodied 
the bulk of evangelical truth at any rate; and if 
error is found in it, it is not the wholesale error 
which the opponents of a vicarious atonement af- 
fect. To repudiate the whole of a philosophy 
which comprehends an interpretation of Christ's 

175 



LAW AND THE CROSS 

finished work, from the question of its necessity 
to the question of adjustment in a series of re- 
vealed truth, and brand the whole as error, is to 
ignore by wholesale what able and pious men have 
accomplished in the spread of the gospel by the 
means which they employed. 

Then, too, the presumption is aggravated when 
the objector himself fails to furnish a theory which 
perfectly satisfies all the demands of a better one. 
The admission on the part of wise men that no 
one theory contains all the truth which a compre- 
hensive statement seems to demand ; and the asser- 
tion of others that there are elements of truth in 
all theories, would seem to add sanction to these 
views. Therefore it seems to us that an approach 
to the study of the theory under review would 
better employ itself first in finding the truth it 
contains, than to begin with the idea of demolish- 
ing the theory itself. 

Satisfaction is a good word. It chords with 
much that in the New Testament and in our Chris- 
tian formulas of creed and hymn expresses the 
thought of atonement— " and satisfaction for the 
sins of the whole wo rid.' ' 

The sense in which the atonement made satis- 
faction for sin and met all the legal and moral 
claims involved is the question in dispute. That 

176 



LAW AND THE CROSS 

the satisfaction was the judicial infliction of the 
penalty, with the imputations' involved, is; not de- 
fensible ; but, in lieu of the penalty itself, and as a 
substitute for the penalty, the death of Christ sat- 
isfied all the legal and moral requirements which 
the righteousness of God and the interests of 
moral government demanded, that God might be 
just and the Justifier of the ungodly, is the satis- 
faction which justifies the use of the word and 
gives endorsement to; every hymn which sings 
' ' Jesus paid it all. ' ' In our view, the Satisfaction 
Theory fails to distinguish between what the law 
required of man and what Jesus did to meet that 
requirement in our stead ; and His death was not 
in fact and in every respect a suffering of the pen- 
alty (but analogous thereto), a substitute for the 
penalty. 3 

3 "Some of the mosi distinguished writers, who are worthy of the 
veneration accorded them, object to the word 'satisfaction' in this con- 
nection, as if it necessarily carried with it the objectionable idea of the 
infliction of the penalty on the divinely appointed substitute, but we do 
not so understand it and do not think the Church intends any such 
meaning to attach to it. Our good Dr. Miley was too easily frightened 
at the use of this word and failed to strengthen his position and his 
generally admirable argument for vicarious sacrifice by swinging so far 
away from the word 'satisfaction.' He conceded far too much to the 
defenders of penal atonement by admitting almost all they claim as the 
meaning of satisfaction. We prefer to use the word as the Church 
uses it, and find its use perfectly consistent with our conception of 
an atonement which is not penal, but is ample in its provision to meet 
its exact purpose." — Bishop S. M. Merrill, "Atonement," pp. 66, 67. 



12 177 



CHAPTER XIV. 

THEORIES CONTINUED. THE GROUND OF NECESSITY. 
THE RECTORAL THEORY. 

The test of any theological formula which may 
be proffered as a "theory" of the atonement, is 
its treatment, not of the nature of the atonement 
in general, hut the ground of its necessity. Neces- 
sity being predicated of the atonement provision- 
ally. Not that God was under any necessity to 
provide an atonement. 

A formula may be philosophical without being 
theological. Philosophy employs as the basis of 
its investigation the ideas derived from natural 
reason, having for its subject any chosen object. 
Theology superadds to the principles of natural 
reason those derived from authority and reve- 
lation. (See McClintock & Strong, Art. Theoso- 
phy.) When a theory treats of the work of Christ 
by a method which ignores or denies the authority 
of revelation, its findings belong rather to the field 
of philosophy than of theology ; for the distinction 
between the two belongs both to the method of 

178 



LAW AND THE CROSS 

reasoning and to the subject upon which it dwells. 
Strictly speaking, then, a theory of atonement 
which is the product of a method that negatives 
the authority of the Scriptures belongs to the sci- 
ence of philosophy rather than to that of theology. 
And whether the subject; be a real atonement or 
not must be determined by a proper definition of 
the word itself. 

There are theories, however, which may be 
termed fractional formulas. Deliverances which 
never approach the main question. Then, too, 
there are things and thoughts which belong to 
an edifying discourse about the atonement, which 
are more theological than scientific; seizing upon 
some feature of the mediatorial work of Christ 
or His federal headship, and applying it to the 
salvation of the race; with here and there infer- 
ences taken from the penal satisfaction theory and 
the moral influence theory, just as they seem to 
fit and fill out the figure or formula. 

There are others, the chief virtue of which is 
ingenuity, or to be less exacting in the use of 
words, perhaps the virtue is originality; the only 
point of special agreement being an admission, 
which is evidently true, that to each author the 
atonement is a great mystery. 

Not every modern presentment is a metaphys- 
179 



LAW AND THE CROSS 

ical novelty by any means, but it is generally true 
that an evasion or denial of the ground of neces- 
sity requires a substitute, and that substitute is 
usually some salutary effect traceable to the atone- 
ment itself. Whereas, the first question which 
comes to the lips of an inquirer and to the logic of 
a theory is the question, Why was the death of 
the Son of God necessary to the salvation of the 
World? Each one of the great theological theories 
of the atonement derives its name and title from 
its treatment of this question. 

The Rectoral. or Governmental Theory 

Affirms that the ground of necessity for the atone- 
ment of Christ must be found in the rectoral 
righteousness of God, and that the death of Christ 
was not penal. The atonement was a substitute 
for the penalty. It answers the question of neces- 
sity by discarding the retributive justice of the 
satisfaction theory and emphasizing rectoral— or 
public— justice. Holding that some adequate pub- 
lic manifestation of the righteousness of God was 
necessary, thus to maintain His law, declare His 
hostility to sin, and render it consistent and safe 
to pardon sinners. 

It will not be necessary to recite the theory in 
detail further than is needed to show the relation 

180 



LAW AND THE GROSS 

of the "law and the cross." So far as the ques- 
tion of necessity is concerned it makes no differ- 
ence whether we affirm "the penalty" or "substi- 
tute for the penalty. ' ' Either view represents the 
atonement of Christ as "a full, perfect, and suf- 
ficient sacrifice, oblation, and satisfaction" for 
sin. The question of righteousness involved in 
the requirement of a propitiation is squarely met 
and fairly answered in both theories. 

By affirming that the death of Christ was a 
substitute for the penalty— "that the literal suf- 
fering might be dispensed with"— the rectoral 
theory avoids many objections gravely urged 
against a penal theory. It avoids an objection 
to an imputed guilt and to an imputed obedience : 
To a system of exact equivalents; and to such a 
satisfaction of the penalty that it must be justly 
reckoned as paid, leaving no room for the proffer 
of salvation by grace. Further, it does not render 
such a satisfaction that there is ground for dis- 
tinction between the elect and the non-elect. It 
is an universal or unlimited atonement; the jus- 
tice rendered propitious is public justice and all 
men are made salvable. Thus harmonizing with 
those oft-repeated declarations of the New Testa- 
ment, that the "free gift came upon all men to 
justification of life." 

181 



LAW AND THE CROSS 

It is quite natural to infer that if Christ died 
in our stead He suffered the penalty which the 
law imposed on guilty man. But in the nature of 
things what Jesus could do to meet this require- 
ment in our stead was limited by the character 
of the penalty itself. It was modified by condi- 
tions of fact. He could not suffer the penalty. 
The guilt, condemnation, and eternity of that 
death penalty could not in fact be His; because 
He was innocent, and in Him the Father was al- 
ways "well pleased," and the endlessness of its 
irremediable term was impossible. (If His divin- 
ity is quoted to offset the eternity, what is that 
but a substitute?) He could bring an offering in 
lieu of the penalty, which would satisfy all the 
demands of holy law, and provide a legal— and 
more than a moral— equivalent for the penalty, 
and so far as His death could be analogous it was 
so ; but other, or more than that, it could not be in 
the nature of things. 

The sacrifices of four thousand years substi- 
tuted the penalty until Christ came. He provided 
in His own death what they lacked to render them 
a full, perfect, and sufficient sacrifice for the sins 
of the whole world ; and all that rendered the pen- 
alty itself a just requirement of the law of God 
was as fully met and satisfied by the death of 

182 



LAW AND THE CROSS 

Christ, as a substitute for the penalty, as if the 
penalty itself had been executed, as originally an- 
nounced, as subsequently deferred, and finally re- 
mitted to those who believe on Jesus. For, be it 
remembered, that the penalty is not remitted to 
any living accountable creature except through 
"faith in His blood." St. Paul expressly declares 
"to the saints which are at Ephesus, and to the 
faithful which are in Christ Jesus" (Eph. 1:1) 
that, "we all were by nature the children of wrath 
even as others" (2:3). He reminds these saints, 
in the same epistle, that they were "predesti- 
nated," and "redeemed through His blood;" but 
the consummation of their redemption and the re- 
moval of wrath he attributes to faith, in chapter 
two, verse eight, "For by grace are ye saved 
through faith." 

We forget half the gospel message when we 
ignore the conditions. Everybody remembers the 
text, "I am not ashamed of the gospel of Christ," 
and that part of the context which reads, "For 
therein is the righteousness of God revealed from 
faith to faith," But who remembers the next 
verse? "For the wrath of God is revealed from 
heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteous- 
ness of men, who hold the truth in unrighteous- 
ness." What a beautiful epitome of the whole 

183 



LAW AND THE CROSS 

gospel is John 3: 16, "For God so loved the world 
that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoso- 
ever believeth in Him should not perish, but have 
everlasting life. ' ' But who gives John 3:36a 
place on the opposite wall of his memory? "He 
that believeth on the Son hath everlasting life : and 
he that believeth not the Son shall not see life; 
but the wrath of God abideth in him." In St. 
Paul's great formula of redemption in Romans, 
in the third chapter, he crowds this great sentence 
right into the middle of it> "Whom God hath set 
forth to be a propitiation through faith in His 
blood.' ' Then as he amplifies the doctrine of the 
atonement he weaves this faith condition into 
about every other paragraph to the end. Jesus 
died that the penalty might be remitted, and it is 
as much a part of the method of redemption that 
a free agent consent to the propitiation by re- 
ceiving Christ as is the death of Christ itself. 
Whereas if the penalty had been suffered the 
whole world would in justice be exempt from it, 
and the law thus satisfied justice could not demand 
it again. In logical certainty the Calvinist is right, 
if His first premise of a penal atonement is admit- 
ted. For, if Christ died only for the elect and 
suffered the penalty, His salvation can not be put 
in jeopardy. And on the same terms the TJniver- 

184 



LAW AND THE CROSS 

salist is right ; for he has only to modify one prem- 
ise, viz., that Christ died for all men. Then were 
all free. 

The Rector al Theory carries no such weights, 
and is exposed to none of these insuperable ob- 
jections. The only question which will occur to 
the common sense is this, namely, Is the answer of 
public justice as the ground of necessity a suffi- 
cient answer? 

It approaches the atonement from the right 
standpoint, in that it makes the death of Christ 
a, declaration of the righteousness of Grod. It har- 
monizes with the text, ' ' to declare at this time the 
righteousness of God, that He might be just and 
the Justifier." It rightly places the necessity for 
an atonement in the (rectoral) requirements of 
moral government. None of the objections that 
appear to embarrass a commercial view of the 
atonement can be urged against it. It is supported 
by Arminians generally, and by some moderate 
Calvinists. It chords with the main features of 
what was termed the Edwardian view of the atone- 
ment, and with what may be termed the modern- 
ized Calvinism of New England. 

So far as it addresses the legal problem, the 
only stricture that seems applicable here, is that 
its aversion to tbe penal phase of justice seems to 

185 



LAW AND THE CROSS 

render it open to the charge that it fails sufficiently 
to emphasize the element of satisfaction (or pro- 
pitiation). The answer given to governmental 
necessity is large and weighty, bnt in view of this 
lack it is charged that its discussion of the nature 
of the atonement lacks development. 

The chief objection to the governmental theory 
is one which at first sight seems conclusive; at 
least to an advocate of a vicarious atonement. 
But the thing that gives weight to the objection 
is accidental, or at least incidental, and the more 
it is studied the less it will appear to weigh. 

It is objected that the theory, by grounding 
the necessity for an atonement in the requirements 
of moral government, and representing the death 
of Christ as requisite to the ends of public justice, 
"reduces the death of Christ to a great moral 
spectacle. It becomes in fact another moral influ- 
ence theory." 

The incidental relation between public justice, 
with the ends served by such a spectacle set forth, 
and the death of Jesus as a martyr to the truth 
whose example gives it value, is suggestive of 
such conclusion. But the only parallel is in the 
being set forth. There is absolutely no philosoph- 
ical relation between them. The objection strictly 
applied will hold with reference to any vicarious 

186 



LAW AND THE CROSS 

atonement which is "set forth to be a propitia- 
tion." Though we attach no significance to the 
words "set forth," in the natnre of the case an 
atonement must be exhibited to the world, and 
herein is the only identity. Though it must be 
admitted that public justice derives its sanction 
from the public, it must be credited to the theory 
also that back of any interest His creatures may 
have in it God presides to administer it ; and to say 
as much is to affirm that the atonement is a decla- 
ration of the righteousness of God. 

It is not another moral influence theory, in that 
it requires the death of Christ as the ground of 
salvation. Its treatment of sin requires expiation, 
and whether that expiation is adequate as a satis- 
faction is another question. 

The only point of parallel, therefore, is the 
seeming and not the real. 

The real objection to the recto ral theory lies 
deeper than the seeming; and it may be questioned 
whether, first, it does sufficiently emphasize the 
necessity which renders sin unpardonable without 
an atonement. 

There is such latitude for development within 
the formula of a rectoral theory that this objection 
applies with more force to some presentations 
than to others; some advocates going so far as to 

187 



LAW AND THE CROSS 

deny that the demerit of sin demands punishment 
except wholly upon governmental grounds. We 
have given the early part of this treatise to that 
question, and here we only need to remind the 
reader that our previous conclusions were sup- 
ported by the best of reasons ; only evaded on the 
part of evangelical thinkers by a wrong inference 
as to the use made of the argument. 

It may be questioned, second, whether in plac- 
ing the whole weight of the theory upon public 
justice as the ground of necessity, it does suffi- 
ciently emphasize the element of satisfaction, It 
is objected that the element of satisfaction is lim- 
ited to what is uttered by the object lesson of pub- 
lic justice, and it needs in some way to " bring 
in some form of the idea of satisfaction to divine 
justice." To avoid the "commercial idea" of 
satisfaction as taught in the penal theory, it goes 
to the other extreme and ignores this idea to an 
extent that renders it wanting as a perfect New 
Testament formula. If this be true, it lacks what 
we have urged as necessary to the pardon of sin 
in a perfect government. 

We have no sympathy for an objection which 
classes the rectoral theory with the moral influence 
theories; because of the measure of satisfaction 
rendered to public justice. But if rectoral or gov- 

188 



LAW AND THE CROSS 

ernmental is to be the title of our theory, and pub- 
lic justice rather than general justice is to be em- 
phasized, then the theory in its treatment of satis- 
faction must be strongly guarded at this point. 
It is indeed the heart of the whole subject. A 
formula to express the whole truth must leave 
out nothing that will fairly include and fully de- 
fine the ransom, propitiation, sin-offering, and re- 
conciliation of the Holy Scriptures. Looking back- 
ward it must leave nothing wanting to match the 
demerit of sin, and looking forward it must meas- 
ure up to the salvability of "the whole world." 

It can not be denied that the fear of penal 
imputation has driven some of the ablest advo- 
cates of the rectoral theory to another extreme. 
One whose work is among the most able, and whose 
name is revered, giving one whole chapter to a 
denial of the pardonableness of sin in perfect 
moral government. Thus, after building a super- 
structure that seems impregnable to all logic> he 
proceeds to undermine the foundation and imperil 
the necessity for an atonement. Law has no rem- 
edy for the dead. Sin is death. Pardon is a rem- 
edy. It must be lawful. If any mortal thinker 
presumes that he has penetrated the depths of 
what sin means he has not studied the subject. We 
do not mean a sin, nor any sin, but sin. No com- 

189 



LAW AND THE CROSS 

plicity, compromise or quarter (which pardon 
would imply) is seen in nature or revelation. By 
the apparition of fallen spirits, the exhibition of 
a lost world, the revelation of a great gulf fixed, 
and all the truth from which we mortals shrink, 
the pardonableness of sin under the reign of an 
infinitely Holy God is unthinkable. 

" The lightning's flash did not create 
The awful prospect it revealed, 
But only showed the real state 
Of what the darkness had concealed." 

Atonement must intervene between the idea of 
sin and the idea of pardon in perfect moral gov- 
ernment, and that atonement must as fully declare 
the righteousness of God as the execution of the 
penalty would have done; and it is almost a dan- 
gerous thing to try to measure by words the depth 
of what it meant to Jesus Christ to die ' ' that God 
might be just. ' ' 

Ecclesiasticism has lost its authority. The 
schools have none. The prestige of a great name 
soon wanes. Isms — Arminian and Calvin— no 
longer herd us in hostile camps. Denominational 
lines have no power to keep our books in or out. 
Nobody's ipse dixit goes; and about the only auto- 
crat of theology we know is the approval or the 
condemnation of our brethren. 

190 



LAW AND THE CEOSS 

But there is an authority; an authority that 
presides over the "mysteries of God." We are 
"stewards of these mysteries," and "to the word 
and the testimony" is our final appeal. We ven- 
ture that what our theology needs to-day more 
than anything else is a fearless acceptance of just 
what the Word of God teaches. 

The good will and good sense of our brethren 
is great to keep us from any tendency to overdo 
or underdo our exegesis, but it will not furnish au- 
thority or provide material for stalwart life-giv- 
ing thought. Sometimes this invisible monitor 
acts as a deterrent, and authors seem afraid to 
say sun up or sun down, lest it appear ancient or 
unscientific. And that may acount in some meas- 
ure for the fact that instead of building on founda- 
tions laid in the New Testament, and thus adding 
strength to the formula of an evangelical atone- 
ment, so many have built little block-houses of 
their own out of the chips that fell from the work 
of other men. 

Some clear-headed, well-informed, and schol- 
arly men hesitate in giving unqualified endorse- 
ment to either the satisfaction or the governmental 
theories. They have gripped the pillars of truth 
as they stand in the Holy Scriptures, and credited 
this to one theory and that to the other. We ven- 

191 



LAW AND THE CROSS 

ture the statement that if the essential justice of 
God, judicially interpreted, were made to apply to 
the latter theory with proper clearness and em- 
phasis, the element of satisfaction would receive 
ample treatment, and commend the rectoral theory 
to the Godly judgment of such men. Some of our 
fathers covered a broad chasm by the words gen- 
eral justice, and it is indeed doubtful if in respect 
to the element of satisfaction any of the more re- 
cent advocates of this theory have improved on 
the clearness and amplitude of Eichard Watson. 1 
We venture the prophesy that a fearless grip 
on the New Testament words and terms, regard- 
less of consequences, will give thle Church of the 
future a, theory of the atonement that will be a 
battlecry and a reduplica of the stalwart gospel 
of St. Paul. 

1 Substantially the Governmental Theory. K Not merely a wise and fit expe- 
dient of government, implying one of many possible expedients ; " but a substitute 
for the penalty, with due emphasis upon the satisfaction rendered to justice. A 
declaration of the Kighteousness of God, upholding the authority of the law, the 
righteous and holy character of the Lawgiver, and thus rendering pardon possible. 
See Theological Institutes, Vol. II, Page 139. 



192 



CHAPTEE XV. 

THE DEATH OF CHEIST SUBSTITUTIONAL. SIN OF- 
FERINGS. GREEK PARTICLES, WORDS, AND 
TERMS. HEATHEN AND JEWISH SACRIFICES. 
SACRIFICE AND SOCIAL FREEDOM. NEW TESTA- 
MENT PREACHING. 

We have refrained from burdening the reader 
with a study of the words and terms employed 
by the Scriptures in defining redemption, pro- 
pitiation, ransom, atonement, etc. Sources of in- 
formation are too many to require it, and Biblical 
cyclopedias are sufficiently full to give the gen- 
eral reader a very just notion of these and kin- 
dred words as employed in the original. 

Jesus Christ is represented as the Lamb of 
God which taketh away the sin of the world. As 
such His death was a propitiatory sacrifice. The 
New Testament use of the word Xvrpov, rendered 
ransom, and its derivatives, together with other 
terms indicative of atonement, imply that the 
death of Christ was substitutional; and in the 
same sense as were the sin-offerings of the Old 
Testament. That is, not as "a Gift to the Deity,' ' 
nor as "a municipal fine," but as a substitute 
for the sinners presenting it, and in recognition 
13 193 



LAW AND THE CROSS 

of the fact that under the law the penalty for 
disobedience was death. 

Any other view of the sacrifice seems un- 
natural and forced, and leaves the question of 
Jewish motive unanswered, while the facts as they 
stand recorded in the Old Testament render such 
conclusion natural and apparent. 

Leviticus 17 : 2 can be understood in no other 
sense than that of substitution: "For the life of 
the flesh is in the blood: and I have given it to 
you upon the altar to make an atonement for 
your souls : for it is the blood that maketh atone- 
ment for the soul." That without such blood 
the penalty would be visited upon the guilty is 
the logical inference from such terms. That the 
life which was in the blood and poured out with 
the blood was substituted for the life of the sinner, 
only needs a recognition of the fact that death 
was the penalty for sin. 

The law so declared. It was oft repeated, and 
universally so understood. Thus the syllogism is 
rendered perfect. We are aware that this con- 
clusion has been disputed, and that various mean- 
ings attach to the different kinds of sacrifice. It 
is freely admitted that some scholarly men have 
disputed the idea of substitution. It takes the 
most erudite kind of scholarship even to attempt 

194 



LAW AND THE CROSS 

it, and nobody else would think of trying to con- 
vince a Jew that the blood of the Passover was 
not substitutional: something more than "a Gift 
to offended Deity," "a municipal penalty," or of 
the same character "as other sacrifices." But 
the bulk of ancient testimony, including the 
Eabins and the Church Fathers, together with the 
fact that expiatory substitution by sacrifices was 
common with other ancient nations, adds such 
weight to the common and ordinary interpreta- 
tion as to render it the most rational. Moreover, 
it is natural, simple, appropriate, apparent, and 
implied in the history of the case, both in the 
Old and in the New Testaments, that a sin-offering 
was substitutional. 

Greek Particles. 

Scholarly disputation has left no stone un- 
turned, and every possible phase of the subject 
has been subjected to scrutiny and analysis. Even 
the Greek particles have been used to prove and 
to disprove the theory of substitution. 

Against the doctrine of substitution it has 
been urged that those texts which affirm that 
Christ died for us are capable of a different con- 
struction ; that in but two instances — Matt. 20 : 28 
and Mark 10 : 45 — where our Lord says, "The Son 

195 



LAW AND THE CROSS 

of man came to give His life a ransom for many," 
does the word foe accurately represent the thought 
of the Greek text. 

The word most frequently employed by St. 
Paul is virep — huper. "Christ died for the un- 
godly, ' ' huper — Eom. 5:6. " Christ died for us, ' ' 
huper — verse 8. "Delivered Him up for us all," 
huper — Roni. 8 : 32. Now it is said that huper does 
not signify for, but "in behalf of;" thus implying 
an incidental benefit. It is not, therefore, to be 
understood in the sense of identity or substitution. 
The word used in Matthew and Mark is avn — anti ; 
and anti alone properly expresses the sense of for. 

The argument contained in this statement has 
been variously employed. It is not new. It is 
noted and very conclusively answered by Richard 
Watson. 1 

The difference between "in behalf of" and 
' ' instead of " is thus made the ground of an argu- 
ment against all that is implied in a vicarious 
atonement. 

In reply, first, we deny the accuracy of the 
thing premised. It is by no means true that huper 
is never used in the sense of for. Both as a prepo- 

l Institutes. Part II, p. 107. Where he admits that huper and anti do not 
always signify substitution, but affirms that it is equally " certain that these prep- 
ositions do often Bignify substitution ; and that the Greeks, by these forms of ex- 
pression, were wont to express a vicarious death." 

196 



LAW AND THE CROSS 

sition and in words composite it is frequently so 
used. Primarily, and with reference to place, it 
has the sense of over ; corresponding to the Latin 
super. 

Sometimes metaphorically, from the notion of 
standing over to protect ; for, in defense of, in be- 
half of. 

Again in the sense of for, instead of, in the 
name of, vnip iavrov — in his stead. 

The meaning of both huper and anti in a ma- 
jority of cases must be determined by the context. 
Sometimes either particle would equally express 
the sense of substitution — whether used singly or 
compounded. In the sentence, "Who gave Him- 
self a ransom for all, ' ? 1 Tim. 2:6, we have the 
word antilutron, a corresponding price: and 
huper, for all. 

Anti may not always mean for, though it usu- 
ally does. The original sense is, over against. 
Hence answering to instead, in the place of. Often 
to denote equivalence, frequently the same as the 
Latin pro. In the sense of for, in the place of, 
it is often employed in the classic Greek, in the 
Septuagint and in the Gospels. 

Huper is used in the sense of identity — Acts 
26 : 1 — ' ' Thou art permitted to speak for thy- 
self. ' ' In the sense of substitution in Rom. 16 : 4 — 

197 



LAW AND THE CROSS 

"For My life laid down their own necks." In 
John 11 : 50 — * ' Expedient that one Man should die 
for the people, that the whole nation perish not. ' ' 
And in Eom. 5 : 7, 8 — ' l Scarcely for a righteous 
man will one die, yet peradventure for a good 
man some would even dare to die; but God com- 
mended His love toward us, in that while we were 
yet sinners Christ died for us." 

We urge it as a rule, that when a preposition 
capable of more than one meaning occurs in a 
sentence, it is safe to prefer the meaning that 
will best harmonize with the context. And again, 
a construction which contradicts the sense of the 
sentence is not admissable. For even an opponent 
must be allowed to be consistent with himself. 

Take the sentence, "It is expedient that one 
Man should die for the people, and that the whole 
nation perish not." The preposition is huper. 
It bears either construction: in behalf of, or in- 
stead of. Instead of is preferable, because the 
context declare that the people would perish if 
the one Man does not. Death is the alternative. 
The same truth applies with the text in Eom. 5: 
7, 8, and others. Moreover, the overwhelming pre- 
ponderance of facts, which otherwise determine 
the question of substitution, pro and con, should 
decide the meaning to be preferred when it can 

198 



LAW AND THE CEOSS 

not be determined by a fair application of gram- 
matic rules. 

It should be borne in mind that in none of the 
texts cited, nor in any others which declare that 
Christ died for us, is there the slightest intima- 
tion that His death was other than in our room 
and stead. That St. Paul gave preference to the 
use of one particle rather than another has no 
other ground to stand on than the fact of prefer- 
ence; and if "the Greeks were thus wont to ex- 
press a vicarious death," there is good ground 
for that preference — in usage rather than in any 
shade of distinction between the particles em- 
ployed. While every other fact, historical, logical, 
and declarative, affirms the death of Christ sub- 
stitutional. 

In view of the latitude involved in the use of 
the Greek particles, very little reliance can be 
placed on an exegesis founded on them or the 
difference between them. Sometimes a preposi- 
tion stands in the middle of a sentence to balance 
the meaning of both sides. Sometimes it is a pivot, 
or a round table, on which a sentence, like a loco- 
motive, is turned. Sometimes it serves to parallel 
two ideas, or to separate them. Sometimes, like 
anti, it stands in the middle and points a hand 
both ways; and sometimes it is like — huper. In 

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LAW AND THE CKOSS 

some cases they are good to sharpen the wits of 
students ; in others, good material with which to 
quibble; but never of sufficient utility for the 
foundation of a theological structure. 

If it is thought that Paul's preference for 
huper — with the sense given, L e., "in our be- 
half" — seems to favor the Eectoral as against 
the Satisfaction theory, in that the sufferings of 
Christ were not penal; but "in our behalf" as a 
substitute for the penalty, we reply that the con- 
clusion would be an unfair advantage. "In our 
behalf" favors no theory of substitution. It 
neither affirms nor denies. Its use requires the 
context to fix the sense in which Christ died in 
our behalf. 

And indeed one of the very simple reasons 
for assuming that St. Paul meant to use huper 
in the sense of "for" is that in many texts the 
context plain avers substitution. 

There are many texts in which neither anti nor 
huper is used that affirm substitution, such as, 
"Who His own self bears our sins in His own 
body on the tree," 1 Peter 2: 24. All those pas- 
sages which represent the offering of Christ as a 
sin-offering, or His death as an expiation for our 
sins, with or without reference to Greek particles, 
affirm substitution. 

200 



LAW AND THE CROSS 

Therefore, reasoning from context to preposi- 
tion, we infer that St. Paul meant to employ huper 
with about the same discrimination and emphasis 
as we do when we say that Christ died "for" us. 
If he did not, then with all his learned precision 
in the matter of prepositional preference, he has 
so far abandoned his method of accuracy in the 
contents of his Epistles as to lead the world to 
suppose that he meant substitution. Not merely 
the English world of Bible readers, but the world 
that thought and talked and wrote and sung in 
Greek. While it is reserved for the scholarship 
of modern times to discover his real purpose in one 
of the meanings of one of the Greek prepositions — 
huper. 

Words are but arbitrary signs, made to ex- 
press our thoughts and feelings; and it is not 
always possible to find the exact word and to fit 
it into a sentence or phrase so that it will fully 
express the one or the other with exact and per- 
fect significance. Every object that presents itself 
to the consciousness calls for a corresponding 
word or phrase with which to give it expression. 
Sometimes the whole vocabulary accessible to the 
mind falls short, and lexicographers are con- 
stantly inventing these arbitrary signs to give 
exact expression to new ideas. In science and 

201 



LAW AND THE CROSS 

philosophy, and especially in those departments 
requiring analysis and minute distinctions, it is 
sometimes impossible to invent words that will 
express with perfect accuracy the true concept, 
with just enough and not too much emphasis upon 
every shade of its intended meaning. 

Every possible definition of the word justice 
is not expressed in the many terms employed to 
give it significance. So of substitution, of satis- 
faction, and of many others. Least of all are the 
prepositions endowed with infallibility. 

There are words and terms which in the course 
of time and use come to have meanings aside from 
their etymology. This appears in subsequent 
reference to them. Atonement is such a word. 
Sometimes a word takes on the significance of the 
thing which it metaphorically represents ; and to 
understand its use and application, its history 
must be studied. 

St. Paul did not use the word atonement. His 
word is KdTaWrjyrj, reconciliation. To atone, in the 
ancient Hebrew, was to cover; and its exact sig- 
nification was not broad enough for his purpose. 
According to New Testament theology, the sacri- 
fices of ancient Israel did not "make the comers 
thereunto perfect." "It is not possible that the 
blood of bulls and goats should take away sins ' ' — 

202 



LAW AND THE CROSS 

Heb. 10 : 1, 2. There was an atonement, and sins 
were covered ; but it required the offering of Christ 
"once for all" to perfect the purging of sins. 
"For by one offering He hath perfected forever 
them that are sanctified, ' ' verse 14. 

The sacrifices of the Old Testament were like 
so many "notes of promise." A promissory note 
covers the debt for the time being, but it must be 
taken up at maturity and the obligation canceled. 
That cancellation is better expressed by "the 
reconciliation" than by "the atonement," etymo- 
logically understood. 

But the word atonement in present use has 
come to have a wider meaning than that of a cover- 
ing. It perfectly represents to Bible readers the 
finished redemptive work of Jesus, and there in- 
heres in it a composite picture, a mental concept, 
which it perfectly expresses to many minds. We 
incline to think that KaTa\\ mi translated the atone- 
ment in the A. V., more nearly expresses to the 
average reader the thought of St. Paul than any 
other word in the English language. It is a word 
that persists. 

In view of the evolution of languages, the 
changes wrought in time, and the difficulty of con- 
verting a dead language into the precise and ani- 
mated terms of a living tongue, not to mention 

203 



LAW AND THE CROSS 

the factors of liinited data and the differences 
of individual opinion, it is amazing that we have 
in our English Bible (of either version) a work 
of such compass and precision. 

The work of a learned tent-maker, who twenty 
centuries ago contributed so largely to the bulk 
of the New Testament, and whose Alexandrian 
Greek was as finely chiseled as the products of 
Phidias, with as much life and beauty as the tes- 
sellated frescoes of a Greek temple, is to-day con- 
verted into "our mother tongue;" and we expect 
to find in it every shade and trace of thought that 
moved the soul of Paul, when with the fine hair- 
pencilings of an artist he traced the fervid lines 
of his Gospel to the Gentiles. 

It is not strange that there is room for differ- 
ence of opinion in determining the precise mean- 
ing of a word or a sentence, and is it not more 
in harmony with the dictates of common sense 
that questions involving the nature of a propiti- 
atory sacrifice would better be determined by his- 
tory and usage than by a precisional preference 
for one of the definitions of a Greek particle ? If 
so, the theory of a vicarious atonement is vindi- 
cated, and it only remains to show in what sense 
the sufferings of our Lord were substitutional. 

In our search for the diminutive we sometimes 
204 



LAW AND THE CEOSS 

overlook the vast. This is a tendency with spe- 
cialists. The findings of scholarship settle 
things; but the area which it covers mnst not be 
limited to a part. It is even possible to put into 
a formula all the elements it should contain and 
yet to lose the life which should animate the whole 
body. The history of a doctrine is sometimes as 
essential to its proof as the very words it con- 
tains. Background is as essential to a picture as 
some of the scenes which compose its parts. 

When the apostles began to preach the gospel 
of Christ, with the emphasis on "Him crucified/' 
it was unnecessary to argue the need of an atone- 
ment. The world was fully prepared to receive 
the Christian doctrine of expiatory sacrifice. 
Without the shedding of blood no remission, was 
the doctrine of Jew and Gentile. Sacrifice was not 
only familiar to the Jewish and pagan world, but 
the only conceivable method of approach to God 
or to the gods. They knew no other; and while 
the Jew in his dispersion, or the Gentile in his 
skepticism, clung to a vestige of religious senti- 
ment the doctrine of expiation was imperious. 
The demerit of sin, the justice of penalty, and the 
necessity for atonement was universally held; and 
it only needed the proof that Jesus Christ was 
the God-appointed Victim of sacrifice to complete 

205 



LAW AND THE CEOSS 

the gospel ground of reconciliation. And to this 
task the apostles gave themselves with all the 
miction of a supernatural anointing. 

This, among other historic facts, was part of 
the preparation for the coming of Christ, and it 
furnished a basis of faith for the heathen as well 
as the Jewish world. 

To argue that since all the old Jewish types 
and symbols are swept away their significance is 
of no value in determining the true character of 
Christianity, is to defy both history and Provi- 
dence, and to make the apostles a party to the 
ignorance, rather than the truth, of heathenism. 
In fact, the very words and terms of Jewish ritual 
were adopted and adapted, greatly to the further- 
ance of the gospel. And an ethical theory of 
the atonement which ignores the heinousness of 
sin (rather the fact of sin), and the relevancy of 
Jewish sacrifices to illustrate the atonement, is 
moored to nothing in either the history of man- 
kind or the words and terms of apostolic use and 
sanction. 

Critics of to-day laboriously challenge, by dig- 
ging at the foundations, what the apostles and 
primitive Christians built upon without question. 
If they were wrong, it was fortunate for Chris- 
tianity. Then the apostles are found false wit- 

206 



LAW AND THE CROSS 

nesses of God for the furtherance of the gospel — 
a thing Paul repudiated as a slander, in that some- 
what curious passage in Eom. 3:7, 8, "For if 
the truth of God hath more abounded through 
my lie unto His glory; why yet am I also judged 
as a sinner? And not rather (as we be slander- 
ously reported, and as some affirm that we say), 
Let us do evil that good may come 1 Whose dam- 
nation is just." (He says in a preceding verse, 
"I speak as a man," and he evidently does.) 

The fact that the heathen world so believed is 
no proof of the divine sanction ; but if the apostles 
were inspired men and built upon it, the divine 
sanction is implied. 

"By their fruits ye shall know them" is not a 
mere maxim. There inheres in it a principle 
wherein righteousness and success are related as 
cause and effect. The vast harvest of Christianity, 
wherein is included the bulk of all that has blessed 
the world since Christ ascended, must be traced 
to its root in the gospel of the cross. 

Moreover, sacrifice, as we know it, involving 
self-denial for the good of others, is one of the 
grand elements of social betterment. The path 
of liberty is stained with the blood of those who 
suffered vicariously; and is it any wonder that 
its very life and essence is personified in Christ 

207 



LAW AND THE CROSS 

and exhibited in His cross? Nor is it merely a 
question of doctrinal interest which may be out- 
grown and outlived. It faces the moral reforms 
of every age and at the most vital point. Just 
now men are everywhere agitating the question of 
Social Freedom. What is the price of social free- 
dom? Answer, Sacrifice. 

The highest aim of social freedom is brother- 
hood, and it can neither be secured nor main- 
tained without sacrifice. The principle of sacri- 
fice is divine. "Bear ye one another's burdens" 
divides the load. The "Golden Kule" is mightier 
than gunboats to keep the peace of nations. 
Eacial brotherhood is the political millennium. 
Sacrifice rooted in regeneration is the God-ap- 
pointed means. Pray that it may come ! 

Jesus Christ chose the lone and periled path 
of pain and death because it was the only one 
that led to the rescue and redemption of a perish- 
ing world. Substituting, Satisfying, Sacrificing. 
The Christian doctrine is that sin can not go un- 
punished in the divine administration. It is re- 
inforced by the awful consequences of sin, every- 
where apparent, from Eden down. The penalty 
must be inflicted, or the authority of law must be 
established by means of the death of Christ in our 
stead. (An interpretation of the exact nature of 

208 



LAW AND THE CEOSS 

that substitution is of small moment compared 
with the fact.) Words, terms, types, symbols, 
doctrinal truths, and parallelisms in one long pro- 
cession reinforce the statement that Christ died 
in our stead. And an interpretation of the atone- 
ment which does not comport with its use in evan- 
gelical preaching, and present the Lamb of God 
as a victim of sacrifice, enduring the cross and 
despising the shame as our substitute, and in full 
satisfaction of the demands of infinite justice, 
comes short of New Testament preaching and com- 
mon sense interpretation. 

He died in our stead — what love! To vindi- 
cate the righteousness of God in the pardon of 
our sins — what justice ! That whosoever believeth 
on Him might not perish, but have eternal life — 
what grace! 

Note. — The only serious objection to the doctrine of substitution grows out 
of the supposition that the sufferings of Christ were penal, and the substitution 
absolute ; as per the Satisfaction Theory. 

The Govermental Theory obviates that objection. Affirming that the sub- 
stitution was provisional and the atonement rector al. Another chapter will dis- 
cuss this difference. 



209 



CHAPTER XVI. 

NOT "OUR THEORY." THE SATISFACTION REN- 
DERED? I. NEGATIVELY. II. AFFIRMATIVELY. 
THE REAL MYSTERY. THE PROPITIATION ANALO- 
GOUS TO THE PENALTY. THE BLOOD OF CHRIST 
THE PERPETUAL BINDING MEANS OF RECONCIL- 
IATION. 

Peehaps the reader is ready to ask for a com- 
plete constructive statement of the author 's theory 
of the atonement. Such demand is reasonable 
enough, but it implies too much: namely, that 
there is room for a new theory, and that we pre- 
sume to clothe it in terms of originality as our 
theory. 

Not so ; but on the contrary, we agree with Dr. 
Miley in the statement that there is room for but 
two theories of a vicarious atonement. 1 Not that 
these two appropriate all the facts; but two with 
respect to something — that something having spe- 
cial reference to the substitution; whether abso- 
lute, as in the Satisfaction theory, or provisional, 
as in the Governmental theory. (Or put in an- 

1 Atonement In Christ, p. 106. 

210 



LAW AND THE CROSS 

other form, two with respect to the satisfaction 
rendered to justice; whether penal or rectoral.) 

That can not be an atonement which has no 
respect to the question of satisfaction rendered; 
nor to the righteousness of God which stands as 
a bar to pardon. Therefore, the announcement of 
a new theory, in strict alignment with the facts, 
means something other than a vicarious or a New 
Testament atonement. Hence a constructive 
statement which incorporates either theory, with 
a right interpretation of the questions involved 
in substitution and satisfaction, is all that can be 
reasonably required. 

The utility of a theory is determined by its 
answer to the question of satisfaction. Or in 
other words, in pointing out the connection be- 
tween the death of Christ and the justice that 
was concerned to render pardon possible. 

The question is sometimes put in these words, 
"What is the vinculum between the death of 
Christ and the pardon of sin?" In any form in 
which the question may be put we face a problem, 
and many thoughtful students of soteriology are 
slow to believe that with all the data we possess 
it can be fairly solved. It may be that here the 
river runs into the sea, and if so our terminology 
will not reach the depths; but it will aid our 

211 



LAW AND THE CROSS 

appreciation of the magnitude of the atonement, 
and we make the attempt. 

If the nature of the atonement is determined 
by the nature of its necessity, what is the ob- 
jective ground of that necessity? If it is justice, 
as affirmed by both theories under discussion, 
was it penal or retributive justice ; or was it rec- 
toral or public justice? If the Satisfaction theory 
is preferred, the answer is easy and direct. If 
Christ suffered the penalty in our stead, the sub- 
stitution was absolute and the satisfaction the 
same in kind. Then the words and terms ransom, 
redeemed, bought with a price, on Him was laid 
the iniquity of us all, etc., are to be taken literally 
and need no comment. But against this view of 
satisfaction it is objected that if the sufferings 
of Christ were penal then the debt is fully paid 
and the atonement must issue in the salvation 
of all for whom Christ died. It only requires 
an unlimited atonement to prove an universal 
salvation. Moreover, if the penalty has been suf- 
fered, it would be unjust to require it again ; while 
the bestowal of its benefit in the pardon of sin 
would be an act of sheer justice and not "by the 
grace of God." 

On the other hand, if retributive justice was 
not concerned in the sacrifice and the objective 

212 



LAW AND THE CROSS 

ground of the atonement was wholly rectoral, there 
is ground to suppose that some expedient other 
than the death of Christ might have satisfied the 
ends of public justice as an administrative dis- 
play ; and we have another Moral Influence theory, 
which is not an atonement in any New Testament 
sense. Not that the advocates of a rectoral theory 
admit this conclusion. They disclaim the idea, 
and affirm that it was a declaration of the right- 
eousness of God. This can well be done, pro- 
vided the element of satisfaction is not ignored; 
and provided rectoral justice is so defined that 
the ends of retributive justice, so far as neces- 
sary to declare the righteousness of God and 
maintain the interests of moral government, were 
met and satisfied by the propitiation. 

In order to clear the subject of all extraneous 
matter, and if possible render the discussion com- 
prehensive to the general reader who is not versed 
in the theories of the atonement, we will attempt 
an answer to the question that follows; namely, 
What justice was concerned in the necessity for 
an atonement, and what justice was satisfied iit 

THE DEATH OF CHEIST? 

We think that the answer embodies most that 
is vital to a right interpretation of the atonement. 
And in making the attempt we are not unmind- 

213 



LAW AND THE CROSS 

ful of the fact that it involves some of the most 
serious difficulties, and that very wise and able 
men have differed in their conclusions. In the 
hands of men whom the Church reveres as among 
its greatest thinkers the objections we have noted 
are made to disappear: but whether with true 
scientific accuracy is a matter of opinion, and the 
espousal of either theory a matter of preference. 
It is ours at most to view the subject from 
the standpoint of evangelical utility, and to in- 
sist that a true theory of the atonement must in 
its presentation of the justice satisfied, measure 
up to the plane of apostolic preaching and to the 
principles involved in the faith of an actual Chris- 
tian experience. And in this connection it is well 
to remark the fact that one reason, though not 
the chief reason, why it is difficult to measure 
up to this demand in the discussion of theories 
is because such treatment is seldom addressed 
to the efficacy of the atonement; and properly so. 
Whereas the New Testament writers usually treat 
the death of Christ from the standpoint of its 
efficacy as the ground of salvation. But the point 
at which the efficacy and utility of the atonement 
touches this requirement is just here and has to 
do with the question of satisfaction, which must 
be treated in attempting the answer. 

214 



LAW AND THE CROSS 

Satisfaction. (I. Negatively.) 
The word so often used in theological phrase, 
and in the formula, "A perfect sacrifice, oblation, 
and satisfaction for the sins of the whole world, ' ' 
is a good word. It may embarrass some theorists, 
but it helps to keep us close to the idea of pro- 
pitiation. If we adhere to the sense given it in 
the Roman law, it must refer to the i ( contentment 
of an injured person." And in that sense, satis- 
faction would have reference to the mind of God 
as favorably affected. Properly understood, that 
sense is admissible; but not so as to imply an 
implacable disposition needing appeasement or 
propitiation. It is almost too juvenal to refer 
to an implacable God, who "so loved the world 
that He gave His only begotten Son that whoso- 
ever believeth on Him might not perish, but have 
everlasting life. ' ' An ordinary heathen, conscious 
of sin and under a sense of its ill desert, and with 
an apprehension of punishment, might readily in- 
fer that the divine displeasure could be averted 
by a placating atonement. 

There would be no occasion for any discrim- 
ination in the nature of his offering, whether of 
the field, the forest, or the flock. The only 
measure of adaptation would be its value to him ; 
and since life itself was more precious than any- 

215 



LAW AND THE CROSS 

thing else, he might literally give "the fruit of 
his body for the sin of his soul." The purpose 
of such devotion would be to placate the anger 
of his god and thus escape the penalty which his 
sins in justice deserve. Why is not this view of 
satisfaction to divine justice the true view, and 
hence the Christian doctrine of atonement? 

Every intelligent Christian repudiates it; and 
those who oppose the doctrine of a vicarious 
atonement on the ground that it is "heathen and 
barbarous ' ' persist in doing so, either in ignorance 
of the fact or from sheer contumacy. There is 
nothing in the divine disposition needing an 
atonement other than such as is grounded in His 
rectoral obligations. In general, it may be said 
that whatever of judicial rectitude on the part 
of God which required Him to inflict penalty upon 
transgressors and thus declare His righteousness, 
was involved in the satisfaction rendered. Noth- 
ing in His fatherly disposition needed pacification, 
placation, or satisfaction which was not involved 
in essential and rectoral justice. 

It is only such satisfaction to the mind of 
God as renders it safe and expedient, and con- 
sistent with His righteous character as a just Gov- 
ernor, to exert the prerogative of pardon. 

It is not uncommon in legal practice for a judge 
216 



LAW AND THE CEOSS 

to express his profound sorrow in the act of pro- 
nouncing sentence against a culprit; and if in 
a case of great provocation he should express his 
gratification, he transcends the spirit of the law 
which knows no resentment. The law takes no 
account whatever of praise or blame, and is ut- 
terly devoid of passion. 2 

The effect upon the mind of God in case sin 
was punished as it deserves would be anything 
but pleasing. Yet it would be such a declaration 
of the righteousness of God as would meet the 
demands of holy law, maintain the honor of His 
administration, uphold His authority, and satisfy 
His obligation to punish sin. Nor can the death 
of His only begotten Son be viewed as a satisfac- 
tion to Him in any other than this legal and rec- 
toral sense ; which, in view of the justice involved 
in the penalty announced and the ends sought by 
a declaration of the righteousness of God, fully 
satisfied the Law-giver. 

COMMEKCIAL OE DlSTEIBUTIVE JUSTICE NOT 
Co^CEENED. 

The satisfaction rendered was not a quid pro 
quo. It was not a satisfaction in the sense of a 

2 Note the description of a perfect Judge or Chancellor, as given by Judge 
Walker, and quoted in the early part of this work, p. 38. 

217 



LAW AND THE CROSS 

commercial equivalent. The words redeem, ran- 
som, propitiation, and bought do indeed imply 
a consideration; but they do not define that con- 
sideration. That Christ fulfilled the law for us, 
both in obedience to its precept and in the suf- 
fering of its penalty, is an inference not war- 
ranted by the New Testament; though it is so 
nearly the truth as to become a fruitful error. 

If Christ paid our debt in the sense of ren- 
dering satisfaction, both in kind and degree, then 
our justification would be a matter of right, de 
jure, by law and not by grace ; whereas we are not 
justified by the atonement, but by grace; the 
atonement having rendered it just on the part of 
God to bestow that grace, on the sole condition 
of faith in Christ, "who was delivered up for our 
trespasses and was raised for our justification" 
(Rom. 4:25). 

The atonement is necessarily provisional. No 
atonement can be made that would render the sub- 
stitution of Christ absolute. Retributive justice 
was not so satisfied that it would be unjust to 
punish sin. Such an absolute substitution ac- 
cepted as a satisfaction in the sense that all sin 
is punished in Christ would ignore moral account- 
ability, cancel free agency, and thus transcend the 
purpose of moral government. 

218 



LAW AND THE CEOSS 

It is true that all men are made salvable ; but 
neither the divine attitude toward the heinous- 
ness of sin, nor the status of sinners with respect 
to their moral obligation, is changed by the pro- 
pitiation. The law is not abrogated. Its penalty 
is not paid. 

It is this commercial view of the atonement 
which invites most of the criticism against it ; and 
it can not be denied that when burdened by such 
an interpretation, a vicarious atonement has a 
mercenary aspect. It is true that the death of 
Christ was a consideration which God accepted 
as securing the interests of moral government, 
as we shall see later, but the atonement did not 
render sin any less obnoxious to God nor sinners 
any less worthy of the penalty. 

The atonement was not only a declaration of 
the righteousness of God, but a declaration of 
His purpose to punish sin. It did not appease 
the wrath of God. And though it be a difficult 
and delicate task to define the judicial sense of 
that term, it must neither be denied nor ignored. 
Some thinkers, in order to defend the divine char- 
acter against the charge of personal resentment, 
reduce the wrath of God to an impersonal pla- 
cidity. They begin right by grounding it in His 
holiness, but conclude with something more like 

219 



LAW AND THE CROSS 

the divine complaisance. They are not able (none 
of us are) to comprehend the extremes of divine 
wrath and divine love, which met in the vindi- 
cation which the death of Christ was designed 
to effect. ' ' Vengeance is Mine, I will repay, saith 
the Lord," does not mean that God is vindictive 
and will punish sin to gratify His personal re- 
sentment. Vindication is allowable and just, and 
better expresses the primary meaning of the 
Greek, ekdikesis, than the word vengeance. 3 

It requires a breadth of thought like that which 
contemplates the endlessness of space to see in 
the attitude of the Supreme Being a judicial wrath 
and a filial beneficence as both are exhibited on 
the cross. 

Satisfaction. (II. AjrrRMATrvELY.) 

What justice was concerned in the necessity 
for an atonement, and what justice was satisfied 
in the death of Christ? 

Having prefaced the subject negatively, we are 
now prepared to discuss the question of satisfac- 
tion affirmatively. It is plain that the justice that 
was concerned in the necessity for an atonement 
is the justice satisfied, and for this reason we 

3 See this distinction clearly treated in "The Keligion of To-morrow." By 
Frank Crane, page 319. 

220 



LAW AND THE GROSS 

have put the question in the double form recited. 

It is plain that the nature of the atonement 
is fixed by the nature of its necessity. The same 
justice which rendered it impossible to extend 
mercy to the guilty, by the pardon of sin and the 
bestowal of grace, was the justice to be satisfied 
by a propitiation. The satisfaction demanded 
was one that would render it possible for God to 
be propitious. 

Now, the justice concerned was, first, that 
which belongs to the rectitude of the divine char- 
acter: expressed by the term, "the righteousness 
of God." And second, rectoral — or public — jus- 
tice: that which concerns moral government and 
the interests of all His creatures. 

The salutary benefits of the atonement no 
doubt, as foreseen by Him, did most powerfully 
affect the divine mind in providing it. "He shall 
see of the travail of his soul" (Isa. 53: 11). But 
these benefits stood not in the way as a bar to 
pardon, and can not enter the problem in the 
question of satisfaction rendered. 

Until God could extend a provisional pardon 
(that is a pardon conditioned on faith in Christ), 
it was necessary that an atonement be provided 
that would justify the divine character and up- 
hold the authority of law while securing to man 

221 



LAW AND THE CROSS 

the gracious benefits of the divine favor. In the 
death of Christ these ends were secured, and so 
far as it affected the mind of the Law-giver He 
was satisfied, and so far as it affected the prin- 
ciples of righteousness that stood in bar to the 
exercise of pardon they were satisfied. 

We have in these conclusions ample vindica- 
tion of a vicarious atonement, and if we could go 
no further there might be general agreement 
among evangelical thinkers. 4 But beyond this, in 
defining the justice concerned in the propitiation 
of Christ, the thinkers of the Church divide. 
Therefore, with the greatest deference to the 
opinions that differ, we attempt a further answer 
to the question; viz., "What justice was satisfied 
in the death of Christ?" 

Beginning as before, with the statement that 
the same justice which rendered pardon impossible 
was the justice concerned in the propitiation, we 
affirm that it was rectoral or administrative jus- 
tice. (The words rectoral, administrative, gov- 
ernmental, and public justice all implying the 
same thing.) We can not interpret the atone- 
ment as a ransom in any such sense that the death 

4 Originally it was not our intention to pursue the subject further : but we 
yield to the demand for "something constructive," and endeavor to "atone" for our 
strictures regarding theories, by carrying the question of satisfaction to a defi- 
nition of the kind of justice suffered and satisfied. 

222 



LAW AND THE CROSS 

of Christ consummated the salvation of sinners 
by rendering to retributive justice all that was 
due, and we think that a right definition of the 
word rectoral is sufficiently comprehensive to in- 
clude the ends of essential justice involved in the 
sacrifice. 

If we are to use words in a technical and 
theological sense, we must be careful to define 
them with precision ; and if rectoral justice is thus 
correctly defined, there is no question but it is 
sufficiently declarative of the righteousness of 
God and of the satisfaction rendered. 

The objection to its use as a final answer is 
that it savors altogether of administrative expe- 
diency; and it follows that if the atonement was 
solely a governmental expedient, it may be one 
of several that might have been adopted. God 
might as well have declared His righteousness 
as He did the Ten Commandments, in an imposing 
and spectacular manner. All of which is abhor- 
rent to the spirit and letter of the New Testa- 
ment. 

Hence we insist that rectoral justice must be 
understood to include essential justice. "We must 
avoid the thought that rectoral justice has no 
value but as a display. Back of its utility as a 
deterrent and incentive there must be a ground 

223 



LAW AND THE CBOSS 

of righteousness: else it would not be a declara- 
tion of the righteousness of God. It would not 
be rectoral justice. 

It is, therefore, impossible to separate the 
quality of essential justice from the atonement 
as a governmental measure, and we are justified 
in amrmiug that the justice which rendered par- 
don impossible was the justice satisfied in the 
propitiation; namely, rectoral justice. The rec- 
toral ends of essential justice were met by the 
death of Christ as well as they would have been 
met by the infliction of the penalty. 

If the Supreme Lawgiver is disposed to for- 
give sin and can not forgive sin consistently with 
His rectoral obligations, and must needs punish 
it to declare His righteousness and maintain the 
interests of moral government without peril, then 
an atonement which would :meet these exds, 
though it be not the penalty, but a substitute for 
the penalty, may be a just ground of pardon. 

Now, it is our claim that in the nature of the 
case Jesus could not suffer the penalty; that in- 
superable objections to a penal atonement render 
it impossible; that the sufferings of Jesus were 
not the same in kind and degree; but that His 
death as a substitute for the penalty met the 
ds so jar as they were concerned to de- 
224 



LAW AND THE CROSS 

dare the righteousness of God, maintain the in- 
terests of moral government, and render pardon 
possible. 

Such a Governmental Theory is rational and 
tenable, and we believe it measures up to the plane 
of an evangelical New Testament gospel, and 
answers to the requirements of "a full, perfect, 
and sufficient sacrifice, oblation, and satisfaction 
for the sins of the whole world." 

Among the advocates of such a governmental 
view of the atonement, as opposed to the idea that 
the death of Christ was a mere administrative 
expedient, we class Richard Watson. He says: 
"We call the death of Christ a satisfaction ren- 
dered to divine justice, with reference to its ef- 
fect upon the mind of the Supreme Lawgiver. 
As a just Governor He is satisfied, contented with 
the atonement offered by the vicarious death of 
His Son." "Nor is this to be regarded as a 
merely wise and fit expedient, a point to which 
even Grotius leans too much, as well as many 
other divines." 5 

We are pleased to note that our position is 
further confirmed by Dr. Miner Raymond, who 
says, "The death of Christ is exponential of divine 
justice, and is a satisfaction in that sense, and 

5 Institutes. Vol. II. pp. 138-9. 

is 225 



LAW AND THE CROSS 

not in the sense that it is, as of a debt, the full 
and complete payment of all demands.' ' And 
again: "The death of Christ is declarative. It 
declares the righteousness of God; is a declara- 
tion that God is a righteous Being and a righteous 
Sovereign; it satisfies the justice of God, both 
essential and rectoral, in that it satisfactorily pro- 
claims them and vindicates them by securing their 
ends — the glory of God and the welfare of His 
creatures. ' ' 8 

It does not lower or minify the death of Christ 
to say that it was not the penalty, but a substi- 
tute for the penalty. To say, as Dr. Raymond 
does, that the sufferings of Christ "were equiv- 
alent in the ends secured, but not equivalent in 
the sense that they are of the same nature,'' har- 
monizes with the facts and is perfectly consistent 
with all the terms involved. 7 

Dr. John Miley, whose great work on the 
atonement is a classic, disclaims the view that the 
death of Christ was merely an administrative dis- 
play, but affirms that it was a declaration of the 
righteousness of God. 

He further says : "As in the Satisfaction The- 
ory, so in the Rectoral, the sufferings of Christ 



6 Systematic Theology, p. 258. 

7 Idem, p. 272. 



226 



LAW AND THE CROSS 

are an atonement for sin only as in some sense 
they take the place of penalty. But they do not 
replace penalty in the same sense in the schemes. 
In the one they take its place as a penal substi- 
tute, thus realizing the office of justice in the 
actual punishment of sin; in the other they take 
its place in the fulfillment of its office as con- 
cerned with the interests of moral government. 
It is the office of justice to maintain these inter- 
ests through the means of penalty. Therefore, 
atonement in the mediation of Christ must so take 
the place of penalty as to fulfill the same office. 8 
Not the penalty, but "the fulfillment of its office 
as concerned with the interests of moral govern- 
ment,^ is equivalent to saying that the atone- 
ment satisfies the ends of justice involved in the 
sacrifice, as well as the penalty itself would have 
done : so far at least as the purpose of the penalty 
was governmental. 9 

8 Atonement in Christ, Page 217. 

9 Dr. Miley seems to make ample provision for the element of justice in his 
definition of rectoral justice, but he was so careful to shun the terminology of the 
satisfaction theory that he has given it no prominence. We think he drove danger- 
ously near the edge when he said, there is no absolute necessity for punishment on 
the ground of the divine veracity (p. 158), and that one wheel went over the bank in 
the statement that the demerit of sin alone imposes no punitive obligation upon 
God, p. 164. We think it does, and that there was no implied conditionality in the 
announcement, of the penalty, " Thou shalt surely die." 

But whether this be the case or not, it is certain that the demerit of sin ren- 
ders punishment just (this he affirms also), and if just, it seems to us, that any 
other treatment of it can not be optional. Moreover it is part of the office of puni- 
tive or retributive justice to uphold public justice; and if the ill desert of sin puts 
no obligation on the lawgiver to punish it we have no ground of essential righteous- 
ness in rectoral justice. 

The ends of retributive justice are twofold, having reference both to the 
governor and to the guilty. If the first is provided for, the second may be remitted. 
But, let it be noted, the obligation obtains until the atonement renders it optional 
with God to remit the penalty. 

227 



LAW AND THE CROSS 

It serves every purpose to say that the justice 
ill at stood in bar to the pardon of sin, and the 
justice met and satisfied by the death of Jesus 
was rectoral. That while He did not suffer the 
penalty, His death took the place of penalty, met 
the ends of justice — essential and rectoral — so far 
as necessary to declare the righteousness of God 
and render pardon possible. 

If the objector insists that retributive justice 
must be satisfied, we reply: It is part of the 
office of retributive justice to vindicate the law 
and conserve the interests of moral government. 
This end was met in the atonement, and to in- 
sist that retributive justice must be met absolutely 
is to insist on the penalty. If the penalty is suf- 
fered, justice is satisfied absolutely and nothing 
is left for pardon. The purpose of the atone- 
ment was not absolute, but provisional; and all 
that was needed to render pardon possible was 
to vindicate the law and conserve the interests of 
moral government. Do we then make void the 
law? Nay, God forbid! Yea, we establish the 
law. 

Therefore we insist that the propitiation was 
not the penalty, but a substitute for the penalty, 
which met all the ends of justice concerned in the 
transaction ; not to effect an absolute pardon, but 

228 



LAW AND THE CROSS 

"to declare His righteousness, that God might 
be just and the Justifier of him which believeth 
in Jesus." 

It is a common saying that there is some truth 
in all theories. But if there is any truth in that 
saying, it can not apply to the question of satis- 
faction rendered to justice. For as we have seen, 
there can be but two theories with reference to 
the satisfaction rendered or the justice propiti- 
ated. Either it was retributive and absolute jus- 
tice, as represented in the theory of penal sat- 
isfaction, or it was rectoral justice, as defined by 
the advocates of a provisional atonement in the 
Governmental Theory. 

The Real Mysteey. 

There are questions involved in the problem 
of atonement which we can answer only in part — 
for we know in part. Among them and growing 
out of this discussion is the question which every 
studious mind will ask; namely, How does the 
death of Christ meet and satisfy the ends of 
justice 1 

Hitherto we have dealt with the legal prin- 
ciples involved; with facts and phases familiar 
to us ; but here we come face to face with greater 
problems, and our knowledge is limited to what 
is revealed. 229 



LAW AND THE CROSS 

The "how" of the atonement can not be fully 
comprehended. "Angels desire to look into it." 
It involves too much to he conprehended in the 
formula of a theory. Much of the confusion and 
most of the nonsense that characterizes many so- 
called modern theories begins at this very point, 
and it is not strange that they go wrong before 
they go far. How the death of Christ meets the 
ends of justice is not explained in the New Testa- 
ment, and yet the New Testament is our only 
authority on the subject. It declares the fact in 
many ways, but the mode is left hidden behind 
the mighty mysteries of the gospel of Christ. 

The question relates primarily to the fact of 
the atonement, and its solution must take into 
account the incarnation, the person of Christ ; His 
relation to the Father as the only begotten Son, 
and to the race of man as its head and repre- 
sentative; His original and underived qualifica- 
tions as the Eternal Logos ; His voluntary humili- 
ation and substitution of Himself for us as the Son 
of God and the Son of man. All this, together 
with His investitures of office as the anointed 
Eedeemer, Prophet, Priest, and King, made His 
atonement what it was ; while His offering of Him- 
self "without spot to God, through the Eternal 
Spirit," consummated the sacrifice and (satisfied) 

230 



LAW AND THE CEOSS 

confirmed the justice of Almighty God. The in- 
carnation and a multiple of mysteries behind the 
veil of His flesh are only revealed in majestic 
outline. The atonement is all the more sublime 
because here it reaches into the inscrutable. 
Should the greatest transaction of all time, in- 
volving a reconciliation of the justice of God with 
His mercy, have no unsounded depths for us? 
The divinity of Jesus Christ, as well as His hu- 
manity, rendered Him eligible as the Lamb of 
God. That He was divine brings into the sacrifice 
an element of infinite merit, and while we can not 
explain the mode of its application to the problem 
of justice, we know that the sacrificial death of 
such a Being is enough. To one who believes in 
the divinity of Christ — especially if he has 
"tasted the good Word of God and the powers 
of the world to come, ' ' the problem is solved. . In- 
deed, the fact that the death of Christ met and 
satisfied all the ends of justice involved in ren- 
dering a lost world salvable is written on every 
page of the New Testament. 

Analogous to the Penalty. 
The awfulness of such a mystery as the death 
of the Son of God can only be compared to the 
awfulness of the wrath of God in the execution 

231 



LAW AND THE CROSS 

of the penalty itself. And that this should be 
so is more than a mere coincidence. There is a 
perfect analogy between the penalty and the sub- 
stitute for the penalty. If not designed, it is at 
least laid in the very nature of things, and abso- 
lutely necessary to meet the ends of justice as well 
as the penalty would have done. 

In some physical respects there is identity, 
but in others analogy. The penalty was death. 
The substitute was death. The likeness is so 
exact that even the Scriptures speak of the sub- 
stitute in terms that apply to the penalty. Nor 
is this a concession to a penal theory. It could 
not be otherwise (unless there was no analogy) 
and take the place of penalty. 

In a penal theory there is absolute identity, 
and hence no room to speak of an analogy be- 
tween the death of Christ and the penalty. But 
in the Governmental scheme there is not only 
room for it, but occasion to emphasize it. Advo- 
cates may evade it to escape the appearance of 
identity; but to our thought it is needed to give 
the theory New Testament standing and complete- 
ness: for if the death of Christ was not a suf- 
fered penalty, it was so like it as to meet all the 
ends of penalty that were concerned to vindicate 
the law and conserve the interests of moral gov- 

232 



LAW AND THE CROSS 

ernment; and Christ Jesus set forth to be a pro- 
pitiation declares the righteousness of God as 
well as the penalty would have done. This is 
the Sectoral or Governmental theory in a para- 
graph. The analogy left out or ignored leaves 
the Governmental theory with nothing to stand 
on but an administrative display, and that without 
a foundation in justice. A substitute for the 
penalty which does not reach to the bitterness of 
a dreadfully analogous death is indeed a substi- 
tute, but it is a substitute for the atonement. 

It matters not, if the ends of justice are met, 
whether it be the penalty or a substitute for the 
penalty; but the purpose of the penalty, so far 
as the penalty was designed to vindicate the law 
and declare the righteousness of God, must be 
met by death. We aver that the death of Christ 
was analogous to that death. 

We would be careful here. God forbid we 
should minify the death of Christ by trying to 
measure it! This is holy ground. To meet the 
ends of justice which the penalty was designed to 
effect it was not enough that the Son of God 
should suffer: He must die. It was not enough 
that He should humble Himself to the estate of 
man. It was not enough like the penalty to be- 
come a Man of sorrows and acquainted with grief. 

233 



LAW AND THE CROSS 

There were reasons for that, too. "It became 
Him in bringing many sons into glory to make the 
Captain of their salvation perfect,' ' perfect as a 
Captain, "through sufferings." It was not 
enough that He taste the bitter experiences of 
poverty, rejection, and shame. That was analo- 
gous to some of the results entailed by sin and 
hence to the penalty : but it was not enough. He 
must taste death for every man. His death is 
the atonement. 

Death is not a cessation of being or the ex- 
tinction of life merely. It involves a change of 
state, and is a profound mystery. Whether in the 
separation of soul and body, or what the New 
Testament terms "second death," it is an awful 
"hurt," and the fear of death is universal and 
seems to be innate in every living creature. It is 
associated with sin as the sting of death, and with 
the devil as "having the power of death," and 
is represented as both a consequence of sin and 
a curse. Poetic license may make it a friend, but 
it is "the last enemy" to be destroyed. The 
fear of it is an instinct of preservation. It is 
natural to dread it, and supernatural to conquer it. 

True, the Christian has nothing to fear. Christ 
has taken the sting out of it. (Heb. 2:14 and 
Jno. 9:51.) Nor shall we ever know the death 

234 



LAW AND THE CEOSS 

He lias tasted. We can only veil our faces and 
leave Him as the angels did — to die alone. His 
awful isolation, the withdrawal of His Father's 
face, evoked that bitter cry, "My God, My God, 
why hast Thou forsaken Me?" Only the simple 
language of the Gospels can frame the scene of 
such a death and enshrine the pathos of its never- 
ending appeal to the mercy of God and to the 
hearts of men. His death — sad, strange, analo- 
gous to the penalty, and unutterably appalling— 
was enough. Viewed from the throne of infinite 
holiness or from the standpoint of any world in 
the universe of God, it was enough ! And if ever 
the finite and the Infinite are reconciled, they must 
come together facing that stupendous fact. 

It does not belong to our little reasonings to 
fathom the atonement. As far as we can think 
and our common sense is capable of weighing evi- 
dence, the atonement of the New Testament is 
a rational method of reconciliation. But deeper, 
wider, higher, and forever the merit of Jesus' 
blood is boundless. The cross stands midway be- 
tween man and God, between the finite and the 
Infinite, between the Logos and His creation, and 
is the means of reconciliation. It will never be- 
come old or obsolete. The one great dependent 
fact, the one immortal truth that Jesus' blood 

235 



LAW AND THE CROSS 

was shed for us renders us eligible to receive 
the grace of God ; while God Himself can do noth- 
ing for us except through our Lord Jesus Christ 
and with respect to His shed blood as the per- 
petual binding vindication of the deed. 

Note. We limit our discussion of Theories to those treated at length, for the 
reason that the Satisfaction and Governmental theories are sufficiently compre- 
hensive to cover every relevant question that concerns the real problem. 

Moral Influence theories, which conceive the work of Christ as terminating 
on man, in bringing to bear on him inducements to the Christ life: Mystical 
theories, which conceive Christ's work as terminating physically on man : Theories 
which shift the merit of atonement to the incarnation of Christ ; and others equally 
irrelevant, do not concern an evangelical interpretation of the New Testament. 

In our view there can be but two theories of the atonement, which can claim 
the merit of a vicarious atonement, in strict scientific relation to the doctrines of 
the New Testament, evangelically interpreted. 



236 



CHAPTER XVII. 

AXIOMATIC POSTULATES OF KEASON. AN "I AM.' 
MAN'S PLACE IN THE DIVINE PURPOSE. RECON- 
STRUCTION OR DESTRUCTION. GRANDEUR AND 
ETERNITY OF THE CHRISTIAN CALLING. 

G-od is seen in His works as in His Word. If 
anywhere in the universe we can find thought, we 
have proof of a thinker. If design, then a de- 
signer. If we find a thing or being possessed of 
personal consciousness, that is something or some- 
body that exists and knows it, we may be sure that 
the creator of that thing or being possesses per- 
sonal consciousness. 

It is one thing to exist, and another thing to 
exist and know it. Somewhere, sometime, and 
somehow, we do not know where, or when or how, 
each of us came to possess personal consciousness. 
Each one of the race of man is an I am. If there- 
fore G-od is our Creator, He must posses personal 
consciousness, and be an I AM. Else the personal 
being, each personal being, is greater than God. 

Whether we are the product of a. distinct crea- 
tion, or the consummation of a long series of 

237 



LAW AND THE CROSS 

forces, and therefore the product of evolution, 
makes no difference. The method of our creation 
is not in' point. The fact that we possess personal 
consciousness, whether its bestowal came to us 
directly, or by the longer route of many steps, is 
proof that it came from a source no less capable 
and no less endowed. It is an old thought, nobody 
knows how old, that an effect can not contain 
more than its cause. It may be denied, but it has 
not been answered. 

Incidentally, it is strongly presumptive of the 
truth, that in giving account of the "burning 
bush," Moses should represent God as the "I 
AM," who sent him to deliver the children of 
Israel. He could not be less than "I AM" and be 
God. If God is a personal being He must be 
either good or bad. We know He is great, and 
we can not conceive a being possessing entity, as 
such, who is not likewise a moral being; a being 
possessed of moral character, either good or bad. 
It is everything to us to believe that God is good. 
It may be that we could not know this with cer- 
tainty without revelation. The heathen do not 
know it; and the best of them deified the bad as 
well as the good. But> whether from His Word 
or His works and our intuitional sense of the 
nature of things, or from all combined, we believe 

238 



LAW AND THE CEOSS 

that God is good. No one who believes that God 
is a personal being and the Creator of the heavens 
and the earth bnt believes that He is a holy God. 
"Holy, just, and good" is the testimony of His 
Word, and few will question that conclusion. 

If then all this be true of God, He is a Thinker 
and a Holy Being. If He is the Creator He must 
have had a plan of creation, and a purpose in all 
the work He wrought. We have seen that He has 
both a physical government and a moral govern- 
ment. Judging from the relative importance of 
things, His moral government is the main thing. 
The moral and spiritual is supreme, while the mar 
terial and the natural exists subordinately for 
higher ends. Man is a microcosm. Both the phys- 
ical and the spiritual exist in him. He is not only 
a being of personal consciousness, but distinctively 
a moral being, and as such a subject of God's 
moral government. All this being true, it is ra- 
tional to suppose that in the beginning— the same 
beginning as of record in Genesis 1: 1— we had a 
place in the divine plan of creation. The Old 
Testament affirms the character of God and His 
creation, while the New Testament in several strik- 
ing passages affirms the "eternal purpose' ' with 
reference to man. Whatever may be thought of 
the divine foreknowledge, or said of "the decrees 

239 



LAW AND THE CROSS 

of the Almighty," it is worthy of all theology to 
affirm that God is a Holy God, and that man was 
created for some high and holy purpose. 

That God is a Designer, and that He had a plan 
and a purpose in creation, and that man had a 
place in that plan, and was made for some high 
and holy calling, which wonld include not only the 
perfection of his being, and hence his own felicity, 
but the good of others and the glory of his Maker, 
as the ultimate end of his destiny, is a rational 
supposition. 

The old Catechism rings true in reply to the 
question, "What is the chief end of man?" An- 
swer, "To glorify God and enjoy Him forever." 
If by their beauty and majesty the heavens de- 
clare the glory of God, is it not likewise truth that 
everything God has made does in some way, within 
the sphere of its being and under the law of its 
constitution, serve the end of its being by glorify- 
ing God? And if so, by as much as man is more 
than either material, vegetable, or animal, is it not 
in keeping with the order and constitution of 
things, that he should be destined— or predestined 
—to serve the same end in his higher moral and 
spiritual sphere! The Scriptures so affirm and 
the common sense concurs in the supposition. 

Before we come to utilize these fundamental 
240 



LAW AND THE CROSS 

truths we must remind the thinker that such con- 
clusions involve elements which he may have over- 
looked. They imply vastly more than at first ap- 
pears, and when viewed in relation to moral gov- 
ernment 

They Imply Peeil. 

It is apparent that whatever the purpose in 
the creation of a human race, moral character will 
have something to do with results. Every king- 
dom has within itself the elements of its own de- 
struction. It is true of the physical, and it is emi- 
nently true of the moral and spiritual. And cer- 
tainly the ultimate end of the creation of a moral 
being can not be achieved in defiance of moral law. 

That man was created for such ends, placed 
under moral government and made amenable to 
moral law, and became part of the moral order and 
constitution of nature is all very plausible; but 
it would be presuming too much to conclude that 
therefore the end of his creation would be assured. 

If man was a machine, or an animal, or even 
such a being that his conduct would be the product 
of the forces and agencies of his environment, and 
his character conditioned by them, some certainty 
of results might be predicated: But he is none 
of these. He is an "I am," and free within the 
19 241 



LAW AND THE CROSS 

sphere of liis consciousness to be obedient or dis- 
obedient ; and hence liable to the consequences of 
vitiated and corrupt moral character. In brief, a 
free moral agent can not be subjected to the terms 
of certainty either as to conduct or character. 
Elements of contingency enter the moment his 
freedom of choice is affirmed. There can be no 
moral government without freedom, and freedom 
involves peril. 

Some things are necessitated by the very "na- 
ture of things." Some are contingent by their 
own constitution. For instance: Integrity of 
character— or holiness— is necessary to the frui- 
tion of moral being, and the ultimate end of man's 
creation. Upon the issues of character depend 
the utility of his being to glorify a Holy God and 
achieve the destiny for which he was originally 
purposed and created. Even civil government re- 
quires a degree of loyalty and obedience to law 
that its ends may be usefully served- It is there- 
fore necessary to the pre-intended destiny of man 
that his moral character be not perverted. That 
it may be perverted is a contingency residing in 
his liberty; and the creation of such beings is 
fraught with peril from the beginning. 

Where there is no certainty in the nature of 
the entity created, how can the creator be certain 

242 



LAW AND THE CROSS 

that his product will not bring disgrace rather 
than glory to his name? 

It is easy to see that a race of holy beings— if 
necessitated— would reflect honor and glory upon 
their author. But impossible that a race of beings, 
if made free, should certainly do so. The ultimate 
ends of creation can not be attained without that 
virtue of moral character which men call good- 
ness, and goodness in a free being is the product 
of his choice. Necessitated goodness is not a vir- 
tue. Necessitated badness is not a moral vice, 
Doubtless angels and men were created in the 
divine image, but if created free they may cease 
to be like God and become bad, and thus defeat 
the divine purpose; or, as announced in the New 
Testament^ "come short of the glory of God." 
Freedom involves peril. 

The only peril in the universe of being is in- 
herent in liberty of choice. If therefore integrity 
of moral character, or goodness, or holiness is 
an essential qualification for the achievement of 
the divine purpose, then the creation of free beings 
involves the possibility of defeat. And when such 
beings abuse their liberty, and by the law of cause 
and effect become perverse in character, the pur- 
pose of their high calling is defeated. It is the 
difference between a palatial structure of vast pro- 

243 



LAW AND THE CROSS 

portions finished and furnished, erect and magnifi- 
cent, ready for occupancy, and the same great pile 
a melancholy ruin ; or if not a ruin in all its pro- 
portions, condemned for human habitation. 

Integrity of character, or holiness, being an 
essential qualification, not merely to well being 
but to continued place and calling in the moral 
government of God, no subordinate utility can be 
served by a perverted being. For anything less 
than a moral end is outside of a moral realm and 
belongs to things and not to moral beings. If 
therefore man is a sinner, and thus perverted, or 
depraved, the end of his being is not merely in 
peril, it is rendered impossible. Hence, in perfect 
alignment with this truth, the meaning of the word 
sin in the Hebrew is "to miss the mark." And 
the penalty for sin is no less than death. Failure, 
running back to the pre-intended purpose, and for- 
ward to the ultimate end of his destiny, leaves no 
utility to be served, and the forfeiture of life is 
the only logical sequence of moral law as origi- 
nally declared by the great Creator and Lawgiver. 

Humanly speaking, but two possible things are 
open to the divine economy. Destruction or re- 
construction. But, let us not anticipate alterna- 
tives with the Infinite. "We know that man is a 
sinner; and here seems to exist a dilemma. For, 

244 



LAW AND THE CROSS 

if our conclusions be true, then it follows that 
when God said, "let us make" another "I am," 
He took a great risk, and when His creation fell 
by transgression He faced a dilemma involving 
not only the doom of His creatures but the dis- 
credit of a ruined enterprise. Will He declare His 
righteousness by executing the penalty of death, ? 
And if man is immortal, perpetuate the memorial 
of a failure by an eternal death? Or will He atone 
for the loss by creating another man? If so, the 
new man must be similarly endowed with liberty 
to be a subject of moral government; and if less 
the image of his Maker than the first, the disparity 
would discredit the experiment throughout the im- 
mensity of moral being. 

Then, too, if the great Architect shall repeat 
His creations, how often must He do so ? And how 
long would it be until He should succeed in making 
a man— thus free— who will prove to be imper- 
vious to the temptations of Satan, render perfect 
obedience to moral law, and thus meet the condi- 
tions of a holy character, and render to God the 
glory which the perfection of his moral being and 
the achievement of his holy calling was predes- 
tined to secure? How long? 



245 



LAW AND THE CROSS 

Redemption. 

The facts, as we know them, and our logic, 
fairly applied to the problem in hand, has driven 
us to these conclusions, and we have tentatively 
applied to the Supreme Being a jumble of human 
weakness and divine wisdom. God is not a man 
that He should take risks, make mistakes, and face 
the alternatives of a dilemma. He inhabiteth eter- 
nity. Time from either extreme is equally known 
to Him. We must review our conclusions when 
they charge God with such limitations. Though 
our logic be faultless, and we know how to esti- 
mate liberty and peril, sin and ruin, we do not 
know what God can do or will do. Our only re- 
sort in such case is the authority of His Word. 
And though men may discredit the inspiration of 
the Scriptures, it is only a fair rule of criticism 
that on such a subject— a doctrine of the Scrip- 
tures—they should be admitted to state the whole 
case. Therefore, in view of that authority we ask 
the question, 

What did the Supeeme Being do to eemedy 
the ruin of a fallen race? 

Did He abandon His purpose, and blot with ob- 
livion the work of His hands ? No. Did He change 
the plan of moral government and reconstruct His 

246 



LAW AND THE CROSS 

creation? No. He did neither of the two things, 
which our logic led us to surmise was open to the 
divine economy. He held to His purpose and re- 
affirmed it. The seed of the woman shall bruise 
his head, etc., Gen. 3 : 15. 

The reason so many thinkers "do not under- 
stand the atonement" is because they read only 
half the story of the creation. The other half an- 
tedates the "beginning" of Moses, and dates from 
"before the foundation of the world" (Eph. 1: 4, 
and 1 Pet, 1 : 20). Moses had to begin somewhere, 
so he began at the beginning of the heavens and 
the earth. St. Paul goes back to ' ' The eternal pur- 
pose which He purposed in Christ Jesus our 
Lord" (Eph. 3:11). St. John goes back still fur- 
ther and declares that, "In the beginning was the 
Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word 
was God" (John 1:1). In the third verse he adds, 
with reference to the Word who was in the begin- 
ning with God, "All things were made by Him, 
and without Him was not anything made that was 
made." St. Paul ascribes the creation to Him in 
these words, "For by Him were all things created, 
that are in the heaven, and that are in earth, visi- 
ble and invisible, whether they be thrones, or do- 
minions, or principalities, or powers; all things 
were created by Him, and for Him: And He is 

247 



LAW AND THE CROSS 

before all things, and by Him all things consist" 
(Col. 1:16, 17). 

Some thinkers stop with the cosmogony of Gen- 
esis, and because they do not find any medium be- 
tween the Infinite and the cosmos they give us 
Pantheism. Here, and in many other passages, 
the Xew Testament writers supply that medium 
in the person of the only begotten Son of God, and 
not only so, but so as to identify His mediation 
with both creation and redemption. 

Here are depths which no man may sound. 
But could it be otherwise and be true? Is it not 
rational to suppose that the Supreme Being took 
no risks in the inauguration of free moral govern- 
ment, and that from the beginning He provided 
against the inherent peril of freedom through His 
only begotten Son? For whatever else may be 
true of the impenetrable depths of His eternal 
purpose and the vast amplitude of His works, we 
have the plainest warrant for saying that before 
God would create a world like this, and people it 
with its im m ortal millions and subject them to the 
awful perils and terrible contingencies of moral 
government He foreordained a Redeemer. 

Otherwise the righteousness of God would be 
impeached, His eternal purpose imperiled, and 
measureless interests made to depend upon the 

248 



LAW AND THE CEOSS 

volition of His finite creatures. No ! No ! Eter- 
nal blessings on His name ! He took no such risk. 
He provided a Bedeemer, the safeguard of all the 
contingencies of moral government ; the surety for 
the conduct, the character, and the ultimate des- 
tiny of man. And He did this without violating 
or infringing the principle of liberty, either in 
moral government or in the proffer of salvation to 
man. 

In perfect harmony with the divine character, 
and all the requirements of a providential system, 
fitted into His natural creation, evenly balanced 
as the poise of His planets, and vast and intricate 
as the stellar mechanism. 

Is it not the plain declaration of the New 
Testament fairly interpreted, and its probability 
a fair inference, that the Logos is not only the 
Mediator between God and man, but the medium 
between God and nature? If some of our philos- 
ophers will not heed the voice of this revelation 
and persist in giving us Monism or Dualism, or 
some other logical form of Pantheism, because 
perchance they can not find a missing conjunctiva 
between the Absolute and the finite, we point to 
the eternal Woed and appeal to the fairness of the 
common sense in its interpretation. 

Is is not reasonable, since the mechanical of 
249 



LAW AND THE CEOSS 

nature is inferior to the moral of the divine gov- 
ernment, that the latter should take precedence in 
the divine purpose and provision? The Bible so 
affirms, and since the eternal Logos is the sine 
qua non (the without which not) of the human 
creation, is it not reasonable that He should like- 
wise be the same medial Agent of the material 
cosmos, and the Mediator of all created intelli- 
gences ? 

Closes caught a glimpse of the coming One; 
but the full-orbed splendor of the ' ' Sun of Eight- 
eousness" never rose above the sum mi t of Sinai. 
St. Paul exults in the glory of this mystery more 
than once. Speaking of his "knowledge of the 
mystery of Christ' ' (Eph. 3), he declares that "by 
revelation He made known the mystery," "the 
mystery, which from the beginning of the world 
hath been hid in G-od, who created all things by 
Jesus Christ. To the intent that now unto the 
principalities and powers in the heavenlies might 
be known by the Church the manifold wisdom of 
God. According to the eternal purpose which He 
purposed in Christ Jesus our Lord" (verses 9-11). 
(See the same in Eom. 16 : 25 ; Col. 1 : 27.) 

That the world was created for a purpose: 
That the purpose included a holy human race, 
to the glory of His grace and wisdom and power : 

250 



LAW AND THE CROSS 

That the world was not created until He had pro- 
vided against the; peril of human freedom, the 
Lamb of Grod being conceptually slain before the 
foundation of the world, is the uniform testimony 
of Paul, Peter, and John, in such passages as al- 
ready quoted and many others — notably in the 
following specimens : Firsts in 2 Tim. 1 : 9, " Who 
hath saved us and called us with an holy calling, 
not according to our works, but according to His 
own purpose and grace which was given us in 
Christ Jesus before the world began." Second, 
in 1 Pet. 1: 18, "Forasmuch as ye know that ye 
were not redeemed with silver and gold, but with 
the precious blood of Christ, as of a Lamb without 
blemish and without spot. Who verily was fore- 
ordained before the foundation of the world." 
Third, in Rev. 13 : 8, " The Lamb slain from the 
foundation of the world." 

Relevant Quekies.— In the study of the re- 
demption a thousand queries start up here and 
there as we pass along. Here are heights and 
depths for angelic penetration. Much has not 
been revealed beyond what affects our immortal 
concern. We are considering the divine conduct 
with reference to the law and the cross, and our 
theology must be grounded on what is revealed 
and what we are privileged to know. Theological 

251 



LAW AND THE CROSS 

posies might gratify our fancy, but they will not 
endure a. critical frost. We are warned against 
"intruding into those things which we have not 
seen" (Col. 2:18), and an age-long silence waits 
the answer to many of our questions. 

What will become of the many derelicts of the 
human species? How is the great atonement re- 
lated to the character and destiny of heathen mil- 
lions? What destiny awaits the savage unregen- 
erate or the dwarfed and gnarled and perverted 
of heredity? How many seeds of nature's sowing 
perish in wind and wave> and how few perpetuate 
the life imparted by ancestral gift or improve 
the moral sense "which lighteth every man that 
cometh into the world?" We do not know. 

Of a few fundamental truths that are in their 
nature organic and inherent in the order and con- 
stitution of moral government we are assured by 
revelation and by the confirmation of common 
sense. Whoever has the interest to inquire con- 
cerning these gives proof of a corresponding ac- 
countability to them, and this is enough to warn 
us of a destiny that waits on our treatment of 
them. 

What of other worlds and of other orders of 
being? They must be moral beings, and be the 
subjects of moral government with all its contin- 

252 



LAW AND THE CROSS 

gencies and perils? Angels announced the Sav- 
ior's birth, attended His ministry, watched the 
sepnlcher, and waited to welcome His -return to 
the heavens. "Ascending and descending on the 
Son of man," they are seen by prophets and 
apostles engaged in ministering to the saints, and 
numberless as the stars they are employed in all 
the great drama of John's apocalypse, promoting 
the mediatorial kingdom; and when Jesus comes 
again, attending His triumphant return all the 
holy angels will be seen trampling the clouds of 
the sky. They are not only deeply interested in 
redemption, but vitally concerned and constantly 
employed. 

In the great circuit of moral government, from 
Michael and his angels, who ' c overcame the dragon 
and his angels" by the blood of the Lamb (Rev. 
12: 11), down to the bruising of Satan's head, the 
mighty mystery runs. 

Some tests sound like the opening of the doors 
of perdition when Satan is doomed; others like 
the approach of a bannered host to celebrate the 
Redeemer's triumph. It is written of Christ that 
He died that "through death He might destroy 
him that had the power of death, that is the devil, 
and deliver them who through fear of death were 
all their lifetime subject to bondage" (Heb. 2: 14), 

253 



LAW AND THE CROSS 

and whatever else is meant by the reference, we 
do know that the only effectual bruisings Satan's 
kingdom on earth has ever had came through the 
gospel of the Son of G-od. 

Another text declares that, " Having made 
peace through the blood of His cross, by Him to 
reconcile all things to Himself; by Him, I say, 
whether they be things in earth or things in 
heaven" (Col. 1:20). And another, "Having 
spoiled principalities and powers, making a show 
of them openly. ' ' Thus His redemptive glory per- 
vades all kingdoms, concerns and employs all in- 
telligences, precedes and transcends nature, and 
dates from "the eternal purpose." 



254 



CHAPTER XVIII. 

DEEP THINGS VEKSUS THE CHILDREN. 

Height and depth beyond the reach of all our 
appliances confront us in the study of nature; 
and shall we reject the gospel of the living Word 
because it transcends all our reckoning? It is 
just like God to put a measureless meaning into 
what He has done and said. That grace and 
nature were originally and organically related in 
the divine counsels, that all things emanate from 
Him, "by Him consist," and are ultimately to be 
"headed up in Christ" are matters of frequent 
reference in the New Testament. 

Both in his Gospel and in his first Epistle John 
strikes this chord at the very first. He avers 
that this Word which was with God and was God, 
was in the world, and the world was made by Him, 
and the world knew Him not. He was made flesh, 
and He came to His own (things), and His own 
(persons) received Him not. The first Epistle 
starts with ' i That which was from the beginning' ' 
and it closes with ' ' Little children keep yourselves 

255 



LAW AND Tin-; CROSS 

from idols.' ' The little children never stumble 
at the divinity of Jesus, if the theologians do. 
They believe in Him. if the philosophers will not. 

Unlike Paul, whose style is the oratorical, with 
climaxes at the end. John starts in the heavens 
and comes down to the comprehension of the babes 
in Christ. 

St. Paul, in one of those passages "hard to 
understand/' identifies the fate of nature with 
the fortunes of the redeemed when he says. "We 
know that the whole creation groaneth and tra- 
vaileth in pain together until now. and not only 
so. but ourselves also . . . waiting for the re- 
demption of our body."' (See Eom. 8:22. 23.) 
Creation waits on the manifestation of the sons 
of God. and great redemption consummated will 
include not only the heavens and the earth, but 
a ''new heavens and a new earth." 

Xo wonder the old prophets of Israel. wrajDped 
in the inspiration of a divine mystery, "'inquired 
and searched diligently concerning what or what 
manner of time the Spirit which was in them did 
signify when it testified beforehand the suffer- 
ings of Christ and the glory which should follow." 
And though the mystery which was so long "hid 
in God" is now revealed to us. the wonder grows 
with the revelation. In the great future it will 

256 



LAW AND THE CROSS 

be of transcendent interest to know some of the 
many things which now are hid from us by the 
light that envelops them or the darkness that 
covers us: but here and now, leaning against the 
pillar of some great promise, and looking up, we 
would not exchange what we know of the fate of 
one little child we loved and lost back in the days 
of a desolate home and a broken heart for all the 
wisdom and knowledge of arch^angel-ology. For 
whatever relation the angels sustain to the "first- 
born,' ' and whatever their peril and dependence 
on the Mediator, is not the promise to us and 
our children? And are they not born under 
a charter of eternal life and a covenant of re- 
demption sealed by the blood of the Lamb? Be- 
fore seonic times, before a being breathed or a 
planet burned, the eternal purpose took them in. 
They may droop and die, but angels watch their 
parting breath and bear their deathless spirits to 
the bosom of God, to enter upon their inheritance 
of an eternal, pre-intended birthright. 

Jesus Christ Himself has said that "it is not 
your Father's good pleasure that one of these 
little ones should perish," and between them and 
an offender He has lifted the shield of an awful 
retribution. When we remember that wide over 
the world and all along the years a great majority 
17 257 



LAW AND THE CEOSS 

of all that are born perish before they reach the 
period of accountability, it adds new meaning to 
the story of the ninety and nine and immeasur- 
able interest to the words, "of such is the King- 
dom of heaven." We are urged to lay up our 
treasure there ; but is not heaven the sweeter for 
knowing that you have a child in heaven that 
never sinned? And who would not become as a 
little child to enter? 

Here again we are confronted with another 
problem. If the end of trial in this our present 
probation is the development of character, and 
character is destiny, how are the little ones to be 
developed without so much as "a trial of faith ?" 
Well, 't is true that many of them were here so 
short a time that they may not know they were 
bom on earth. Heaven is home to them. But 
may it not be that people who stay at home will 
outnumber those who go to war, and that we 
mortals are but a small part of that great family 
of God, with heaven the metropolis and our out- 
lying world but a small part of His dominions? 

If there are orders and ranks and series of 
intelligences other than ours, as the Bible affirms, 
and their environment is suited to their powers 
and adapted to their growth and development ; if 
angels and archangels can reach the perfection 

258 



LAW AND THE CROSS 

of their being and glorify God without the dis- 
cipline of trial, surely the little ones, earth-born 
and translated to their company, can reach the 
same celestial goal. 

Because conditions of trial are employed to 
develop character here, it by no means follows 
that the same conditions are essential to moral 
integrity and the perfection of being with other 
orders in a spiritual world. For surely neither 
a tempting Satan nor an experience in sin is es- 
sential either to the fruition of moral being or 
the glory of God. 

True it is that adversity becomes the occa- 
sion for the divine interposition, and the atone- 
ment of Christ with all the providential means 
employed for the redemption and recovery of the 
lost reveals the mercy and manifests the love of 
God as nothing else could. And the fact that in- 
tegrity of character or holiness persists and de- 
velops through all the ordeals of probation and 
becomes godlike— loving what God loves and hat- 
ing what God hates— must be credited to a degree 
of grace not needed by unf alien spirits; and in 
the end no doubt will be fitted for employment 
and engaged in ministries of peculiar honor and 
great glory. Did not an apostle say, "Know ye 
not that we shall judge angels?" (1 Cor. 6:3.) 

259 



LAW AND THE CROSS 

On the other hand ; it may be that our ideals are 
distorted by the perspective of conflict which ages 
of war and bloodshed have produced. Let us 
shake off the stupor of it, and contemplate the 
possibility of a better way. Can not the God of 
peace perfect His creatures without the aid of 
such an environment, and lift the millions of little 
children, who died but never sinned, to as high 
a plane of destiny as any of those who had to be 
forgiven to enter the Kingdom! 

The death and resurrection of Christ consum- 
mated an investiture of authority and power, and 
His qualifications as Redeemer of the race assure 
to them that whatever of injury was entailed by 
sin found its remedy in Him, " through the blood 
of the Everlasting Covenant," which is the char- 
ter of eternal life to them. 

Everything in nature is on a stretch for the 
perfection of its being. Even the tiny creatures 
that wing their flight to the destiny of a day, 
glorify God: And would you ask of the infant 
spirit in its upward flight, "Whither bound, little 
child, whither bound!" Even the daisies that 
grow on its grave, as they struggle up through 
the dark ground in search of the sun, will give 
the right answer, "Bound for the perfection of 
its being and the glory of God!" 

260 



CHAPTER XIX. 

JUSTIFICATION BY FAITH. ASPECTS OF FAITH. 
ATONEMENT IS MADE. FAITH EFFICIENT. 

Men would have us view the Christ historically 
and limit His work to the facts and incidents of 
His life. They would give us no broader view 
of redemption than the disciples had up to the 
time they forsook Him and fled; and then with 
no saving significance allowed to the types and 
symbols of the Old Testament, we are permitted 
to behold the Man. His death was but a martyr- 
dom to the truth and an exemplary lesson in the 
general field of historic providence. 

In keeping with this minified method, the Scrip- 
tures are shorn of divine inspiration, the gospel 
of the supernatural, Christ of His divinity, sin 
of its turpitude, and the atonement of its vicarious 
merit as a propitiation for the sins of the whole 
world. After thus eviscerating the New Testa- 
ment of its sublime evangelical doctrines, one 
would think that little was left but the binding of 
the book. But that would be a mistake, because 
enough of the nomenclature is left to give it the 

261 



LAW AND THE CROSS 

appearance of life and the prestige of an ethical 
religion. 

It is answer enough to affirm that the gospel 
of the apostles is not built on that scale, and the 
mighty tide of transformation that swept through 
the first three centuries and is now rising to the 
evangelization of the nations, had its beginning 
with a crucified, risen, and glorified Redeemer. 
It was when Jesus said "It is finished" that the 
veil of the temple was rent from the top and the 
old covenant fell a wreck between two dispensa- 
tions. It was the startling testimony of eye-wit- 
nesses declaring that Jesus is risen from the dead 
that gave Pentecost its heart-convicted thousands. 
It was the ascended and glorified Christ who kept 
His promise and sent the fiery baptism, first on 
that Upper Room and later on every Church 
founded by apostolic hands. With a background 
of history running through the centuries and 
strewn with bleeding and blazing altars, and with 
the Old Testament sacrifices as familiar to them 
as our hymn-books are to us, they needed but to re- 
member the words of Jesus to understand that He 
was the God-sent Messiah and the atoning Lamb 
that taketh away the sins of the world. 

Stirring and sublime as had been the ministry 
and miracles of Jesus, His death had palsied their 

262 



LAW AND THE CROSS 

rising faith and made the thought of Him a tanta- 
lizing grief. Their hopes lay buried in His tomb; 
the sky was clouded and the night was dark and 
every tongue was dumb. But now, His resurrec- 
tion succeeding the crucifixion and surmounting 
all the glorious manifestations of Israel's God, the 
transition made midnight noon and not only re- 
stored to their faith the immortal memories of 
the ministry of Jesus, confirmed His divinity, and 
invested the cross with the glory of an atone- 
ment, but made it the sacred emblem of the glad 
tidings. 

During the period of His detention on earth 
and before. His ascension, He taught them "of the 
things concerning Himself" and gave them the 
great commission. 

They believed in Jesus as we believe in the sun. 
Then, girded by the energy of a divine afflatus, and 
gifted with power to preach a gospel which they 
knew was the power of God unto salvation to 
every one that believe th, they threw themselves 
into the conflict nerved to suffer any fate if only 
they could live and die for Him. The death and 
resurrection of Jesus was the theme of every ser- 
mon. (See the record,) They gloried only in 
the cross. They believed, and we believe, that 
Jesus tasted death for every man and that His 

263 



LAW AND THE CROSS 

death and resurrection and ascension consum- 
mated the most stupendous miracle of time or 
eternity. 

Is it any wonder that such faith and such ex- 
periences, together with the assurance of the pres- 
ence of our Lord walking in the midst of the 
golden candlesticks, projected a world-wide wave 
across the centuries and that Christianity counts 
her martyrs and her millons yet ? 

Every effect must have an adequate cause. 
When Columbus sailed into the mouth of the 
Orinoco River, somebody said that- he had dis- 
covered an island. "An island," said he; "no, 
indeed; no such mighty torrent of waters ever 
came from an island ! ' ' 

The same gospel that struck the heathen or- 
acles dumb and brought idolatry to the dust is 
just as efficient to-day, and there are more golden 
candlesticks and more tongues of fire, and more 
probability that the reformatory forces of Chris- 
tianity will win their way in air the world than 
at any period of time since Jesus said to His 
disciples, "Go." 

God has a physical government in which His 
worlds complete their progressive orbits accord- 
ing to the laws of planetary motion. He has like- 
wise a moral and a providential government. And, 

264 



LAW AND THE CEOSS 

though the providential is fitted into the moral 
and therefore limited by the contingencies of 
human liberty, the ultimate ends sought by the 
divine purpose are none the less sure. (Liberty 
renders them contingent, but limitless time avails 
to make them sure.) Not all things seem to work 
together for good in His Kingdom; but the ulti- 
mate end will be good. 

It is as if an artificer should make an instru- 
ment to keep time, and the wheels that turn back- 
ward contribute as much to the ultimate end as the 
wheels that turn forward. As students of the 
divine economy we are not sufficiently advanced to 
"tell the time of day," but we do know that since 
" 'twas midnight on Olive's brow" the hands on 
the dial have moved and are moving on toward the 
high noon of a glorious day. Periods of phenom- 
enal progress and others of moral and spiritual 
retrogression have marked the path of Chris- 
tianity from the first. What is termed the Dark 
Ages was a period devoid of progress and unpro- 
ductive of men. What could be more dreadful 
than a thousand years of darkness! And what 
were the causes that led to this appalling state 
of things? We reply, chiefly because the Church 
lost out of its life the experimental, and substi- 
tuted ritualism for evangelism; and it is to be 

265 



LAW AND THE CROSS 

feared that when the Church lapses into formal- 
ism, another age-long night awaits the world. 

The tendency to ridicule revivals and to rele- 
gate conscious personal salvation to the realm of 
vagary and mysticism, and to glorify modern 
ethical ideals instead of the God-honored methods 
of repentance and justification by faith is a sad 
and mistaken trend towards the gulf in which 
Christianity was buried for a thousand years. 

The prosperity of modern nations began to 
dawn with the Reformation, and only by the pro- 
motion of a spiritual evangelism will civil and 
religious liberty be promoted and the political 
world be advanced. God has so linked the prog- 
ress of the Kingdom of Christ with the prosperity 
of the nations that the one can not be promoted 
without similar benefit to the others. 

Is it doubted? We appeal to the pages of 
profane history. Witnesses are not wanting from 
among those who wrote it and were not disposed 
to afford Christianity more credit than was due. 
Even Thomas Paine, whose fame as the friend 
of civil liberty would have been perpetuated had 
he not added to the zeal of the patriot the mis- 
taken notions of the skeptic, wrote these words: 
"The event that served more than any other to 
break the first link in this long chain of despotic 

266 



LAW AND THE CROSS 

ignorance is that known by the name of the Refor- 
mation by Luther. From that time, though it 
does not appear to have been any part of the 
intention of Luther, or of those who are called 
Reformers, the sciences began to revive, and lib- 
erality, their natural associate, began to appear." 1 

If the reverse of such results prove the same 
relation between things spiritual and temporal, we 
have only to cite the French Revolution, and to 
remind the thinker that Atheism never held the 
reins of v government but once, and that was a 
Reign of Terror. Her reformers began destroy- 
ing religion and ended by destroying each other. 
It was not till the head of Robespierre rolled off 
the block and her victims numbered millions, that 
her guilty greed was sated. 

Lift the shadow of a divine hand from off the 
hearts of men and the stability of constitutions 
and statutes has disappeared, giving place to 
anarchy, whose implements are blood and fire and 
death. 

Our institutions of civil and religious liberty 
are dear to us; but if we forsake the God of our 
fathers, that vast valley that stretches between 
the Blue Ridge and the Rocky Mountains may 
become the grave of a Republic, and the woe that 

11 "The Age of Reason," Part I, p. 54, Ed. 1834. 

267 



LAW AND THE CROSS 

awaits our children's children will duplicate the 
tyranny of the Middle Ages and the terrors of 
anarchy. For there is a God "that will by no 
means clear the guilty; visiting the iniquity of 
the fathers upon the children, and upon the chil- 
dren's children, unto the third and the fourth 
generations. ' ' 

What was the secret of the Reformation under 
Luther. Every reader knows that the cornerstone 
of the Reformation was the doctrine of 

Justification by Faith. 

To prove the truth of which a considerable part 
of the New Testament was originally written. We 
have not space to recite the thrilling story of 
Martin Luther's conversion; nor to trace the 
sequel of that great text, "The just by faith shall 
live." Not penance, but repentance; not works, 
but faith became the gospel cry, and the pulpit, 
which had been silenced for five hundred years, 
spoke again ; and erelong the world ' ' saw another 
angel flying in the midst of heaven, having the 
everlasting gospel to preach unto them that dwell 
on the earth, and to every nation, and kindred, 
and tongue, and people." 

In that great epitome of the plan of redemp- 
tion recorded in the third chapter of Romans, 

268 



LAW AND THE CROSS 

St. Paul wove "the faith of Jesus Christ" into 
every other verse. l ' A propitiation through faith 
in His blood," "just and the Justifier of him 
which believeth in Jesus," "justified by faith with- 
out the deeds of the law" are the terms employed. 
He does not give us as much light on the nature 
and the extent of the atonement in its relation 
to those who are rendered irresponsible, or those 
of orders other than human, as perhaps our curi- 
osity would suggest. His message is addressed 
primarily to the free, accountable creatures of 
moral government, to whom the gospel is sent. 
Elsewhere the truth incidental to these various 
phases of redemption receives attention; but here 
he makes sure that to us the salvation of the 
gospel of Christ, grounded on the propitiation, is 
made efficient by faith; and the rest of the Book 
of Romans is devoted to the proof of it 

How could the righteous God provide a remedy 
for sinful men and ignore their liberty? If men 
are free to fall, are they not free to remain fallen? 
And what is the faith required but a voluntary 
acceptance of Jesus Christ and the completed re- 
demption which He has provided? 

Both in the Old Testament and in the New 
faith is made to bulk more than any virtue man 
can render in obedience to the law of God. In the 

269 



LXW AND THE CROSS 

Old faith is employed chiefly in the sense of fidel- 
ity; and in the New Testament its initial office is 
the reception of Christ and the things of His 
gospel. 

Faith— fides— is exhibited in many aspects : fi- 
delity, con-fiding, con-fidence, con-fidant, con-fiden- 
tial, eta, with the emphasis on the root of the 
word, covers the whole duty of man, not only in 
his relation to Grod, but to men. The gospel 
method of salvation is true to the nature of man 
and things, though it be original and unique. That 
it is by faith because it is free is the testimony 
of the Word itself; "it is by faith that it might 
be by grace.' 9 Not only is it freely provided, 
but it is proffered to free moral beings; and the 
only way for a free being to receive a free gift 
is to take it. Hence the benefits of the atone- 
ment of Christ, though they are priceless beyond 
the reckoning of men or angels, and reach from 
the eternal purpose to the illimitable destinies 
of immortality and eternal life, are made avail- 
able to every accountable human being "by 
faith." 2 

z Repentance, which is not mentioned by St. Paul in this immediate 
connection, is presumed in all his foregoing argument; and it must be 
presumed in every case of the man who is eligible to the justification 
proffered, "through the redemption which is in Christ Jesus." True to 
the nature of things, God can not justify the man who continues in re- 
bellion against Him. His refusal to surrender himself and his sins is 
an effectual bar to his eligibility as a believer. 

270 



LAW AND THE CROSS 

Skeptics betray their ignorance of faith as a 
condition of salvation every time they argue 
against it. They assume that the New Testa- 
ment makes faith more of a virtue than good 
works, which is not the truth. It is doubtful if 
the faith of a Christian is any more a virtue, eth- 
ically considered, than the faith of a heathen. 
The heathen exhibits all the credulous devotion of 
a heart-faith in his worship of an idol. If there- 
fore faith, per se, was a rewardable virtue, he 
would be equally commended and his faith re- 
warded with the experience of a personal salva- 
tion. 

That which gives the faith of a Christian its 
virtue is its object: namely, Jesus Christ. Faith 
is only the taking hold of Christ with hearty 
reliance for salvation through Him. It is the 
empty hand that grasps an object, and the reward 
is the object itself. In the nature of things, we 
can not take hold of Christ by works ; but by faith. 
Heathen faith takes hold of a wooden god. Mo- 
hammedan faith takes hold of Mohammed. Chris- 
tian faith takes hold of Christ. A wooden god is 
a thing. Mohammed is dead. Christ is "mighty 
to save." Therein is the difference. 

Faith is not such an imperial virtue of itself; 
but it is very particular and very important It is 

271 



LAW AND THE CROSS 

like the coupling-link between the train and the 
engine. It is the engine that makes the train go, 
and not the coupling. If the poor heathen couples 
his heart to a tree, or the proud philosopher 
couples his soul to a system of thought, the faith 
of either must abide by the consequences of his 
choice. 

What the atonement effected by the removal 
of every legal bar to our salvation was so nearly 
the consu mm ation of that salvation that all that 
was left to be consummated was made to depend 
upon the volition of free moral agents; hence it 
is termed "the reconciliation." "For if when 
we were enemies we were reconciled to God by 
the death of His Son, much more being recon- 
ciled, we shall be saved by His life." "And not 
only so, but we also joy in God through our Lord 
Jesus Christ, by whom we have now received the 

reconciliation ' ' ( " KaraWayrj " ) . 

God is no more reconciled to sin and sinners 
since the offering of Christ than before, but every 
principle of righteousness, every interest of moral 
government, and everything in heaven and earth 
which existed as a bar to the proffer of salvation 
to sinners was reconciled thereto by the death of 
Jesus Christ. It only remains that we surrender 
to God and receive Christ in obedience to His 

272 



LAW AND THE CROSS 

command to repent and believe the gospel, to per- 
fect that reconciliation between Grod and us. 

In keeping with this truth St. Paul concludes 
his reference to the reconciliation by saying, 
"Therefore as by the offense of one judgment 
came upon all men to condemnation, even so by 
the righteousness of One the free gift came upon 
all men unto justification of life" (Rom. 5:10, 
11, and 18). 

If, therefore, justification is a free gift, how 
can it be received but by faith? 

Men recognize the fact that something must be 
done to reconcile them to Grod, and every peni- 
tent, in ignorance of the fact that an atonement 
has been made, or in defiance of the conditions 
involved, goes about the making of an atonement 
for his own sins. First, by an effort to quit sin- 
ning: A feat which no sinner ever yet achieved, 
and in which he of course lamentably fails. If 
he keeps on he may lodge somewhere within the 
experiences of the seventh chapter of Romans. 
He will never get to the first verse of the eighth 
chapter until he quits trying to save himself and 
trusts One who is able to save to the uttermost 
all them who come to God by Him. Second, by 
penance and good works ; which are commendable, 
but neither efficient nor sufficient. Men forget that 
18 273 



LAW AND THE CROSS 

salvation costs infinitely more than they are able 
to pay, and that the suffering has been endured, 
the blood has been shed, and Jesus Christ has 
offered Himself through the Eternal Spirit with- 
out spot to God. And having obtained eternal 
redemption for us, our eligibility to all the accru- 
ing benefits of His death, resurrection, and life 
depends on our being sinners and not on our be- 
coming saints. 

"Will do better" is often an apology for 
having done worse. It is the endless round of 
sinning and repenting ; but it makes no progress. 
Like the running of a belt on two wheels : the sides 
seem to be running in opposite directions, but 
both are stationary. When the wheels run down 
they stop. 

Reformation is a good thing, just in propor- 
tion as persistence in ai wrong course is a bad 
thing. But it is not the thing which comes first 
as a cause and condition of justification. The 
New Testament method of transformation accords 
with both fact and philosophy in demanding that 
first things come first. Make the tree good and 
the fruit will be good. 

He has had little experience in spiritual things 
who does not know that faith is not merely an 
act, but an attitude* In that attitude which God 

274 



LAW AND THE CROSS 

has made conditional for the reception of either 
sunlight or salvation the vital rays ponr down 
upon us when we assume it, and just as long as 
we choose to remain in it. There is a period of 
transition ; whether it be in a moment or a month, 
which no mortal can fully comprehend. Jesus said 
of it, "Thou canst not tell." 

A little child can not comprehend the processes 
of photography, and does not know that in the 
twentieth part of one second about nine thousand 
nine hundred miles of light prints his image on 
the sensitive plate : but he ought to know enough 
to sit still and look pleasant. 

God's purpose with reference to His children 
is that "they be conformed to the image of His 
Son" (Rom. 8:29). And, with all the authority 
of the New Testament, confirmed by the testimony 
of all those who have tried it, we ought to know 
enough to assume the right attitude for sinners, 
and thus get into the path and adopt the plan that 
God has provided. And when we do, "God who 
has caused the light to shine out of darkness will 
shine in our hearts, to give us the light of the 
knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus 
Christ." 

Further pursuit of this theme does not lie in 
our plan: But it is well to note that many of 

275 



LAW AND THE CROSS 

God's dear children are too prone to dwell in the 
state that belongs to the penitent instead of push- 
ing on to a joyous experience; and if a hint of 
the truth with reference to their source of trouble 
will not shock their sense of moderation, we would 
like to say that a minute of faith is worth more 
than a million years of trying to be what we are 
not. 



276 



CHAPTEE XX. 

RECAPITULATION. THE CLIMACTIC "COME." 

" And the Spirit and the Bride say, Come. And let him 
that heareth say, Come. And let him that is athirst come. 
And whosoever will, let him take of the water of life freely." 
—(Rev. 22: 17). 

We have not aimed to give the doctrinal phases 
of the atonement equal treatment, but rather to 
lay a foundation by proving the necessity for an 
atonement. That is the burden of this treatise, 
as we believe it ought to be the aim of the pulpit 
in presenting this theme. The atonement of 
Christ as a fact is the thing of transcendent mo- 
ment. The rest is incidental and of relative im- 
portance. 

Of all that we have written this is the sum: 
The immutable Jehovah, the habitation of whose 
throne is justice and judgment, could not pardon 
sin or proceed to the amelioration of human con- 
ditions without an atonement. First, Because; of 
what He is. It would involve complicity or com- 
promise, and contradict principles of righteous- 
ness upon which 1 the divine administration rests. 

277 



LAW AND THE CROSS 

Second, Because the demerit of sin demands the 
total and irremedial retribution of death. 

The same principle which in human govern- 
ments render pardon impossible (except as a cor- 
rective measure) applies with infinite force and 
absolute certainty in the government of God. He 
can not justify sinners without justifying sin. 
Between the mercy sought to be manifested in 
the pardon of sin and the justice of which the law 
is the exponent and rule of action there is an 
irreparable conflict. 

Men better versed in literature than in law 
and steeped in the Christian charity of which the 
cross is the source may talk and write divinely of 
the infinite love of God and yet be blind to this 
awful problem. But there is a problem, And 
not only so ; when we come to view the suffering, 
want, anguish, and mortality to which poor hu- 
manity has been subjected, with the innocent suf- 
fering more than the guilty, but for a divine reve- 
lation making sin the reason, the great, dark prob- 
lem of evil is enough to impeach the goodness of 
God forever. 

Eternal verities— -as freedom, truth, justice, 
love, and mercy— as truly limit the exercise of 
the divine prerogatives as time and space, matter 
and mind; and to affirm that God can pardon sin 

278 



LAW AND THE CROSS 

without a propitiation is to ignore both the right- 
eousness of God and the heinousness of sin. 

The "holy, holy, holy," of Cherubim and Ser- 
aphim, and the inapproachable light in which He 
dwells all along up the infinite deep proclaim Him 
without variableness or shadow of turning. And 
when; from Him goes forth "a fiery law"— law for 
angels and for men— it is holy law; "holy, just, 
and good." 

That law declared obedience or death. Death, 
whatever else it may involve, is deprivation of 
life. As if the righteousness of God, the well- 
being of His creatures, and the eternal moral 
order of the universe demanded the extinction of 
any thing and the extermination of any being 
that ceased to be holy. (True, nonentity is im- 
possible to immortal beings, and perhaps to matter 
itself, but the one may be excluded from the life 
of holy beings and the other be subjected to the 
alembic of consuming fire.) 

Obedience or death sounds harsh to our lax 
and untrained ears: But it is not harsh. It is 
the eternal rule of right, which in the nature of 
things has no use or employment or purpose for 
discord. We are told that the ancients employed 
the figure of an imperfect curve, a leaning column, 
or a note of discord to represent sin. Sin and 

279 



LAW AND THE CROSS 

death are related as cause and effect; and all 
other effects less than death are but incidental 
to the one final retribution. Therefore, to assume 
that the Supreme Being will extend any other 
treatment than the law announces, either to obe- 
dience or to disobedience, is to assume without 
warrant that His love and beneficence is greater 
than His righteousness— an evident absurdity. 
First make it right or righteous to exercise the 
prerogative of clemency, then beneficence may be 
exerted to the limit, or without other limit than 
is imposed by repentance, including restitution, 
faith, or whatever the good of the individual or 
the interests of public justice require. Otherwise 
clemency has no ground on which to stand, and 
the Supreme Being can not deny Himself. 

We agree with St. Paul in prefacing the atone- 
ment with "the righteousness of God." Not only 
in the preface, but in the brief epitome given in 
the third chapter of Romans, verses 21-26, he uses 
the phrase four times in the six verses. "The 
righteousness of God," to every sinful being an 
awful declaration, and to every other the anchor- 
age of eternal security, above the reach and be- 
yond the ravages of sin and death and hell, is the 
ground and reason for the atonement of Jesus 
Christ. 

280 



LAW AND THE CEOSS 

The cross declared and exhibited the right- 
eousness of Grod as nothing else could have done— 
not even the perdition of the first offender and the 
wreck of the original creation. It reconciled every 
opposing principle of righteousness; removed 
every legal barrier; met and secured the conflict- 
ing interests of moral government and justified 
the act of divine clemency in extending mercy to 
sinful men, conditioned only on their acceptance 
of the proffered gift. 

The modern view, that all punishment is, de- 
signed only to benefit the guilty, is a, monstrous 
perversion of truth. The amelioration and refor- 
mation of offenders is a dictate of mercy, and 
only so far as it affects the public good is it the 
office of justice. Atonement or penalty is the only 
declaration of just law. 

The stand we have taken with reference to the 
necessity for the atonement will harmonize with 
any theory of a vicarious atonement, whether it 
be a Satisfaction Theory or a Governmental. In 
defining the nature of the atonement we can not 
accept a theory which limits the atonement to the 
elect, nor one that insures the eternal salvation 
of the incorrigible, as a penal satisfaction theory 
seems logically to do. 

Nor can we be satisfied with a governmental 
281 



LAW AND THE CROSS 

theory which does not sufficiently emphasize the 
satisfaction rendered to justice. If we limit our 
definition to rectoral justice, we must enlarge the 
word to take in the idea of justice as a principle 
and not merely justice as an expedient. For, as 
we have seen, it was not merely expedient that 
Jesus should die for the sins of the whole world: 
It was necessary— that God might be just and the 
Justifier. 

Freedom ; and the Climacteric Invitation. 

Freedom is the sine qua non of moral govern- 
ment. A single syllable of coercion would not 
only defeat the ultimate ends of moral govern- 
ment, but destroy it, by reducing it to a physical 
government. God reigns; but He does not so 
reign as to either violate principles of righteous- 
ness or defeat the ends of moral government. 
Hence, without any impeachment of the divine 
character or His administration of a providential 
government, Satan reigns and bad men are often 
in authority, contingencies occur, and the world is 
governed (not by law, but) according to law. All 
this without contradiction; because moral agents 
are free. 

It is in view of this fact of freedom that the 

282 



LAW AND THE CBOSS 

salvation of this world was a stupendous prob- 
lem. 

To devise a plan of redemption that would 
harmonize with freedom, and therefore to suffer 
the opposition of bad men and devils; to render 
its acceptance optional with every moral agent, 
and yet so related to the providential government 
of God that it will compass the destruction of 
infernal powers, win the world to Christ, and 
repair the damage of sin and death without a 
word of compulsion. 

This is a big world; and when we remember 
that Christ proposes to win the world by wooing 
it, the wonder grows* Men say twenty-five thou- 
sand miles round, and think they have measured 
it. But, step it off. Better yet : build its bridges, 
railroads, steamships, telegraphs, schools, col- 
leges, universities, and churches. Banish its ig- 
norance, superstitions, and hoary abominations; 
and blaze the way for the institutions of civil 
and religious liberty. Then you begin to measure 
the world. 

Archimedes, that arch mathematician, justly 
famous for his genius and his many inventions, 
added to them the lever; and he is said to have 
boasted that, with! a place to stand and a fulcrum 
on which to rest his lever, he could lift the earth. 

283 



LAW AND THE CROSS 

Little did he comprehend the magnitude of such 
an undertaking. 

A modern astronomer has figured out the prob- 
lem ; and we are told that the length of the arms 
of the lever and the weights at either end must 
be reciprocal. The fulcrum would have to be nine 
thousand miles from the earth, and the long arm 
of the lever extend into space twelve quadrillions 
of miles. Then, if Archimedes would fall as swift 
as a cannon ball for twenty trillions of years, hie 
would lift the earth— one inch! 

The moral world is vastly greater than the 
material. It does not swing out unanchored into 
space, but is held in the grip of a mightier gravi- 
tation. No part of it has ever been lifted the 
fraction of an inch where the gospel lever has not 
been applied. 

To lift it requires the breaking of chains. Ap- 
petite and passion, tyranny and slavery, organized 
selfishness and bloody war are so many cables 
that moor it down and must be sundered. 

But it does move ! With the cross for a lever, 
the pulpit and press for a fulcrum, and good men 
and women and little children tugging away at 
the load, one by one the hoary old links are let- 
ting go: And the time will come when the re^ 
formatory forces of Christianity will give to the 

284 



LAW AND THE CROSS 

nations of the earth the blessings of civil and 
religions liberty, and the triumphs predicted of 
the gospel of Christ will usher in the Millennial 
morn. 

It takes time ! Because men are free ! And in 
view of the fact that love, not force, is the power 
applied, and every worker is a volunteer, the lift- 
ing of this world out of darkness into light will 
be, when done, the most stupendous miracle of 
eternity ! 

Come! 

We began this treatise by appealing to the 
authority of the New Testament; we conclude by 
imitating its example. The last paragraph of the 
Book of Revelation contains not only a promise 
of the second coming of Christ, but an invitation. 
That He will come the second time, without a sin 
offering, to consummate His triumph and our re- 
demption is an oft-repeated declaration ; but here 
is an invitation, both to His coming and to us, 
coupled with a response— "Behold! I come 
quickly.' 9 

It is as if "the angel" of inspiration (22: 16), 
casting one glance upward, inviting His return, 
then facing the millions for whom Christ died, 
had added another invitation to the world-wide 
welcome of the gospel: "The Spirit and the 

285 



LAW AND THE CROSS 

Bride say, Come. And let him that heareth say, 
Come. And let him that is athirst come. And 
whosoever will, let him take of the water of life 
freely.' ' 

As an invitation it is both cumulative and cli- 
mactic. It crowns the mercy of Divine Provi- 
dence and vindicates His justice by another and 
final appeal to the free agency of man. It sweeps 
from the universe the last vestige of complaint 
against the justice of God; pours the river of 
life within the reach of every perishing mortal, 
and places him where by his own volition he be- 
comes the arbiter of destiny for life or for death 
eternal. 

If after this any poor mortal is deluded by 
the fear that he is reprobated to be lost, let him 
put the matter to the test by coming to Christ. 
The whole New Testament system of grace is 
built in recognition of human liberty, including 
every provision, every promise, and every appeal, 
and it was a climax of design that this great " who- 
soever will" should close the Apocalypse. 

Then, as if to guard the sacredness of this 
invitation, a flaming two-edged sword is placed 
in the same paragraph. "If any man shall add 
to these things, God shall add unto him the plagues 
written in this book. And if any man shall take 

286 



LAW AND THE CROSS 

away from the words of the book, God shall take 
away his part out of the book of life, and out of 
the holy city. ' ' 

"Redemption through His blood' ' began to 
date "before the foundation of the world," and 
when it has completed the circuit of time, gath- 
ered in its mighty sweep all those who would, lost 
none but those who would not, the resurrected 
right hand millions will receive another invita- 
tion. 

Crowning the accomplishment of redemption 
there is to be another Come : limited, mandatory, 
triumphant. It consummates the eternal purpose. 
On that day, after the lapse of probationary cen- 
turies, the voice of inspiration that accompanied 
the harp of Isaiah when he sang, "Ho, every one 
that thirsts, come to the waters, come ; ' ' and the 
come, come, repeated so often to the millions of 
earth's sinning and sorrowing children by a suc- 
cession of prophets and preachers, shall be 
blended and transmitted to the skies; and the 
thunder of its welcome repeated from the throne 
of the Redeemer. 

Come, ye blessed. Come from the North and 
the South, and from the East and the West of 
every land and all the ages. Come, from the toil 
and tears and temptations. Come, ye; enter this 

287 



LAW AND THE CROSS 

Paradise, begun before Eden began to bloom or 
its bowers were spread for man. It was prepared 
for you! 

Welcome to its fields and trees and many man- 
sions. Welcome to its freedom, and all the joys 
for which you lived and suffered and died — in 
vain. Angels, principalities, and powers will greet 
you. God Himself says, Come. Leave your 
graves and come. Come to the measureless im- 
mensities of an immortal glory. Enter in through 
the gates; while the elder children of eternity 
and all the elect of other worlds thunder their 
applause. Blazoned in immortal registry your 
names are "written in the Book of Life of the 
Lamb slain from the foundation of the world" 
(Eev. 13:8). 



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